MANKIN 
IN  THE  MAKING 


H.G. WELLS 


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MANKIND    IN 
THE     MAKING 


MANKIND    IN 
TH  E    MAKING 


BY 


H.    G.   WELLS 

AUTHOR    OF 

•'ANTICIPATIONS,"    "THE    FIRST    MEN    IN    THE    MOON ' 

AND   "THE    WAR   OF  THE   WORLDS" 


CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S    SONS 
NEW  YORK:::::::::::::::::  1904 


Copyright,  1904,  by 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

Published,   April,   1904 


TROW  DiaECTonv 

PRinTINS  AND  eOOKBINDINO  COMPANY 
NEW  YORK 


ijW^^tf^ 


R&R 


W-4--54-M 


PREFACE 

It  may  save  misunderstanding  if  a  word  or  so  be  said 
here  of  the  aim  and  scope  of  this  book.  It  is  written 
in  relation  to  a  previous  work,  Anticipations,^  and  to- 
gether with  that  and  a  small  pamphlet,  "The  Discov- 
ery of  the  Future,"^  presents  a  general  theory  of  social 
development  and  of  social  and  political  conduct.  It 
is  an  attempt  to  deal  with  social  and  political  ques- 
tions in  a  new  way  and  from  a  new  starting-point, 
viewing  the  whole  social  and  political  world  as  as- 
pects of  one  universal  evolving  scheme,  and  placing 
all  social  and  political  activities  in  a  defined  relation 
to  that ;  and  to  this  general  method  and  trend  it  is 
that  the  attention  of  the  reader  is  especially  directed. 
The  two  books  and  the  pamphlet  together  are  to  be 
regarded  as  an  essay  in  presentation.  It  is  a  work 
that  the  writer  admits  he  has  undertaken  primarily 
for  his  own  mental  comfort.  He  is  remarkably  not 
qualified  to  assume  an  authoritative  tone  in  these  mat- 
ters, and  he  is  acutely  aware  of  the  many  defects  in 
detailed  knowledge,  in  temper,  and  in  training  these 
papers  collectively  display.     He  is  aware  that  at  such 

*  Published  by  Harper  Bros. 

'  Nature,  vol.  Ixv.  (190 1-2),  p.  326,  and  reprinted  in  the  Smithsonian 
Report  for  1902. 


vi  Preface 

points,  for  example,  as  the  reference  to  authorities  in 
the  chapter  on  the  biological  problem,  and  to  books 
in  the  educational  chapter,  the  lacunar  quality  of  his 
reading  and  knowledge  is  only  too  evident;  to  fill  in 
and  complete  his  design — notably  in  the  fourth  paper 
— he  has  had  quite  frankly  to  jerry-build  here  and 
there.  Nevertheless,  he  ventures  to  publish  this  book. 
There  are  phases  in  the  development  of  every  science 
when  an  incautious  outsider  may  think  himself  almost 
necessary,  when  sketchiness  ceases  to  be  a  sin,  when 
the  mere  facts  of  irresponsibility  and  an  untrained  in- 
terest may  permit  a  freshness,  a  freedom  of  mental 
gesture  that  would  be  inconvenient  and  compromising 
for  the  specialist;  and  such  a  phase,  it  is  submitted, 
has  been  reached  in  this  field  of  speculation.  More- 
over, the  work  attempted  is  not  so  much  special  and 
technical  as  a  work  of  reconciliation,  the  suggestion  of 
broad  generalizations  upon  which  divergent  specialists 
may  meet,  a  business  for  non-technical  expression, 
and  in  which  a  man  who  knows  a  little  of  biology, 
a  little  of  physical  science,  and  a  little  in  a  practical 
way  of  social  stratification,  w^ho  has  concerned  him- 
self with  education  and  aspired  to  creative  art,  may 
claim  in  his  very  amateurishness  a  special  qualifica- 
tion. And  in  addition,  it  is  particularly  a  business 
for  some  irresponsible  writer,  outside  the  complica- 
tions of  practical  politics,  some  man  who,  politically, 
"doesn't  matter,"  to  provide  the  first  tentatives  of  a 
political  doctrine  that  shall  be  equally  available  for 
application  in  the  British  Empire  and  in  the  United 


Preface  vii 

States.     To  that  we  must  come,  unless  our  talk  of 
co-operation,  of  reunion,  is  no  more  than  sentimental 
dreaming.     We  have  to  get  into  line,  and  that  we 
cannot  do  while  over  here  and  over  there  men  hold 
themselves  bound  by  old  party  formulae,  by  loyalties 
and  institutions,  that  are  becoming,  that  have  become, 
provincial  in  proportion  to  our  new  and  wider  needs. 
My  instances  are  commonly  British,  but  all  the  broad 
project  of  this  book— the  discussion  of  the  quality  of 
the  average  birth  and  of  the  average  home,  the  edu- 
cational scheme,  the  suggestions  for  the  organization 
of  literature  and  a  common  language,  the  criticism 
of  polling  and  the  jury  system,  and  the  ideal  of  a 
Republic  with  an  apparatus  of  honour — is,  I  submit, 
addressed  to,  and  could  be  adopted  by,  any  English- 
reading  and   English-speaking  man.     No   doubt  the 
spirit  of  the  inquiry  is  more  British  than  American, 
that  the  abandonment  of  Rousseau  and  anarchic  de- 
mocracy is  more  complete  than  American  thought  is 
yet  prepared  for,  but  that  is  a  difference  not  of  quality 
but  of  degree.    And  even  the  appendix,  which  at  a  hasty 
glance  may  seem  to  be  no  more  than  the  discussion  of 
British  parochial  boundaries,  does  indeed  develop  prin- 
ciples   of    primary    importance    in    the    fundamental 
schism  of  American  politics  between  the  local  State 
government    and    the    central    power.     So    much    of 
apology  and  explanation  I  owe  to  the  reader,  to  the 
contemporary  specialist,  and  to  myself. 

These  papers  were  first  published  in  the  British  Fort- 
nightly Review  and  in  the  American  Cosmopolitan.     In 


viii  Preface 

the  latter  periodical  they  were,  for  the  most  part, 
printed  from  uncorrected  proofs  set  up  from  an  early 
version.  This  periodical  publication  produced  a  con- 
siderable correspondence,  which  has  been  of  very  great 
service  in  the  final  revision.  These  papers  have  in- 
deed been  honoured  by  letters  from  men  and  women 
of  almost  every  profession,  and  by  a  really  very  con- 
siderable amount  of  genuine  criticism  in  the  British 
press.  Nothing,  I  think,  could  witness  more  effectu- 
ally to  the  demand  for  such  discussions  of  general 
principle,  to  the  need  felt  for  some  nuclear  matter  to 
crystallize  upon  at  the  present  time,  however  poor  its 
quality,  than  this  fact.  Here  I  can  only  thank  the 
writers  collectively,  and  call  their  attention  to  the  more 
practical  gratitude  of  my  frequently  modified  text. 

I  would,  however,  like  to  express  my  especial  in- 
debtedness to  my  friend,  Mr,  Graham  Wallas,  who 
generously  toiled  through  the  whole  of  my  type- 
written copy,  and  gave  me  much  valuable  advice,  and 
to  Mr.  C.  G.  Stuart  Menteath  for  some  valuable  refer- 
ences. 

H.  G.  WELLS. 

Sandgate,  July,  1903. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Preface  v 

I.    The  New  Republic       .        .        .        .        .        .        j 

II.    The  Problem  of  the  Birth  Supply    . 

III.  Certain  Wholesale  Aspects  of  Man-making 

IV.  The  Beginnings  of  the  Mind  and  Language 


32 
69 
106 
V.    The  Man-making  Forces  of  the  Modern  State    148 


VI.  Schooling 

VII.  Political  and  Social  Influences 

VIII.  The  Cultivation  of  the  Imagination 

IX.  The  Organization  of  the  Higher  Education 

X.  Thought  in  the  Modern  State 

XI.  The  Man's  Own  Share        .... 


186 
223 
269 
294 

33^ 
365 


APPENDIX 

A  Paper  on  Administrative  Areas   read  before  the 

Fablan  Soiety 371 

Index ^g^ 


MANKIND  IN  THE  MAKING 

I 

The  New  Republic 

Toleration  to-day  is  becoming  a  different  thing 
from  the  toleration  of  former  times.  The  toleration 
of  the  past  consisted  very  largely  in  saying,  "You  are 
utterly  wrong  and  totally  accurst,  there  is  no  truth 
but  my  truth  and  that  you  deny,  but  it  is  not  my  place 
to  destroy  you  and  so  I  let  you  go."  Nowadays  there 
is  a  real  disposition  to  accept  the  qualified  nature  of 
one's  private  certainties.  One  may  have  arrived  at 
very  definite  views,  one  may  have  come  to  beliefs  quite 
binding  upon  one's  self,  without  supposing  them  to  be 
imperative  upon  other  people.  To  write  "I  believe" 
is  not  only  less  presumptuous  and  aggressive  in  such 
matters  than  to  write  "it  is  true,"  but  it  is  also  nearer 
the  reality  of  the  case.  One  knows  what  seems  true 
to  one's  self,  but  we  are  coming  to  realize  that  the 
world  is  great  and  complex,  beyond  the  utmost  power 
of  such  minds  as  ours.  Every  day  of  life  drives  that 
conviction  further  home.  And  it  is  possible  to  main- 
tain that  in  perhaps  quite  a  great  number  of  ethical, 


2  Mankind  in  the  Making 

social,  and  political  questions  there  is  no  absolute 
"truth"  at  all — at  least  for  finite  beings.  To  one  in- 
tellectual temperament  things  may  have  a  moral  tint 
and  aspect,  differing  widely  from  that  they  present  to 
another;  and  yet  each  may  be  in  its  own  way  right. 
The  wide  differences  in  character  and  quality  between 
one  human  being  and  another  may  quite  conceivably 
involve  not  only  differences  in  moral  obligation,  but 
differences  in  fundamental  moral  aspect — we  may  act 
and  react  upon  each  other  towards  a  universal  end, 
but  without  any  universally  applicable  rule  of  conduct 
whatever.  In  some  greater  vision  than  mine,  my  right 
and  wrong  may  be  no  more  than  hammer  and  anvil 
in  the  accomplishment  of  a  design  larger  than  I  can 
understand.  So  that  these  papers  are  not  written  pri- 
marily for  all,  nor  with  the  same  intention  towards 
all  who  read  them.  They  are  designed  first  for  those 
who  are  predisposed  for  their  reception.  Then  they 
are  intended  to  display  in  an  orderly  manner  a  point 
of  view,  and  how  things  look  from  that  point  of  view, 
to  those  who  are  not  so  predisposed.  These  latter 
will  either  develop  into  adherents  as  they  read,  or, 
what  is  more  likely,  they  will  exchange  a  vague  dis- 
orderly objection  for  a  clearly  defined  and  understood 
difference.  To  arrive  at  such  an  understanding  is 
often  for  practical  purposes  as  good  as  unanimity; 
for  in  narrowing  down  the  issue  to  some  central  point 
or  principle,  we  develop  just  how  far  those  who  are 
divergent  may  go  together  before  separation  or  con- 
flict become  inevitable,  and  save  something  of  our  time 


The  New  Republic  3 

and  of  our  lives  from  those  misunderstandings,  and 
those  secondary  differences  of  no  practical  importance 
whatever,  which  make  such  disastrous  waste  of  human 
energy. 

Now  the  point  of  view  which  will  be  displayed  in 
relation  to  a  number  of  wide  questions  in  these  pages 
is  primarily  that  of  the  writer's.  But  he  hopes  and 
believes  that  among  those  who  read  what  he  has  to 
say,  there  will  be  found  not  only  many  to  understand, 
but  some  to  agree  with  him.  In  many  ways  he  is 
inclined  to  believe  the  development  of  his  views  may 
be  typical  of  the  sort  of  development  that  has  gone 
on  to  a  greater  or  lesser  extent  in  the  minds  of  many 
of  the  younger  men  during  the  last  twenty  years,  and 
it  is  in  that  belief  that  he  is  now  presenting  them. 

And  the  questions  that  will  be  dealt  with  in  relation 
to  this  point  of  view  are  all  those  questions  outside  a 
man's  purely  private  self — if  he  have  a  purely  private 
self — in  which  he  interacts  with  his  fellow-man.  Our 
attempt  will  be  to  put  in  order,  to  reduce  to  principle, 
what  is  at  present  in  countless  instances  a  mass  of 
inconsistent  proceedings,  to  frame  a  general  theory  in 
accordance  with  modern  conditions  of  social  and  polit- 
ical activity. 

This  is  one  man's  proposal,  his  attempt  to  supply 
a  need  that  has  oppressed  him  for  many  years,  a  need 
that  he  has  not  only  found  in  his  own  schemes  of 
conduct,  but  that  he  has  observed  in  the  thought  of 
numberless  people  about  him.  rendering  their  action 
fragmentary,  wasteful  in  the  gross,  and  ineffective  in 


4  Mankind  in  the  Making 

the  net  result,  the  need  for  some  general  principle, 
some  leading  idea,  some  standard,  sufficiently  compre- 
hensive to  be  of  real  guiding  value  in  social  and  polit- 
ical matters,  in  many  doubtful  issues  of  private  con- 
duct, and  throughout  the  business  of  dealing  with  one's 
fellow-men.  No  doubt  there  are  many  who  do  not 
feel  such  a  need  at  all,  and  with  these  we  may  part 
company  forthwith ;  there  are,  for  example,  those  who 
profess  the  artistic  temperament  and  follow  the  impulse 
of  the  moment,  and  those  who  consult  an  inner  light 
in  some  entirely  mystical  manner.  But  neither  of  these 
I  believe  is  the  most  abundant  type  in  the  English- 
speaking  communities.  My  impression  is  that  with 
most  of  the  minds  I  have  been  able  to  examine  with 
any  thoroughness,  the  attempt  to  systematize  one's 
private  and  public  conduct  alike,  and  to  reduce  it  to 
spacious  general  rules,  to  attempt,  if  not  to  succeed, 
in  making  it  coherent,  consistent,  and  uniformly  di- 
rected, is  an  almost  instinctive  proceeding. 

There  is  an  objection  I  may  anticipate  at  this  point. 
If  I  am  to  leave  this  statement  unqualified,  it  would 
certainly  be  objected  that  such  a  need  is  no  more  nor 
less  than  the  need  of  religion,  that  a  properly  formu- 
lated religion  does  supply  a  trustworthy  guide  at  every 
fork  and  labyrinth  in  life.  By  my  allusion  to  the 
failure  of  old  formulse  and  methods  to  satisfy  now, 
I  am  afraid  many  people  will  choose  to  understand 
that  I  refer  to  what  is  often  spoken  of  as  the  conflict 
of  religion  and  science,  and  that  I  intend  to  propound 
some  contribution  to  the  conflict.     I  will  at  any  rate 


The  New  Republic  5 

anticipate  that  objection  here,  in  order  to  mark  out 
my  boundaries  with  greater  precision. 

Taken  in  its  completeness,  I  submit  that  it  is  a 
greater  claim  than  almost  any  religion  can  justifiably 
make,  to  satisfy  the  need  I  have  stated.  No  religion 
prescribes  rules  that  can  be  immediately  applied  to 
every  eventuality.  Between  the  general  rules  laid 
down  and  the  particular  instance  there  is  always  a 
wide  gap,  into  which  doubts  and  alternatives  enter 
and  the  private  judgment  has  play.  No  doubt  upon 
certain  defined  issues  of  every-day  life  some  religions 
are  absolutely  explicit ;  the  Mahomedan  religion,  for 
example,  is  very  uncompromising  upon  the  use  of  wine, 
and  the  law  of  the  Ten  Commandments  completely 
prohibits  the  making  of  graven  images,  and  almost 
all  the  great  variety  of  creeds  professed  among  us 
English-speaking  peoples  prescribe  certain  general  defi- 
nitions of  what  is  righteous  and  what  constitutes  sin. 
But  upon  a  thousand  questions  of  great  public  im- 
portance, on  the  question  of  forms  of  government,  of 
social  and  educational  necessities,  of  one's  course  and 
attitude  towards  such  great  facts  as  the  press,  trusts, 
housing,  and  the  like,  religion,  as  it  is  generally  un- 
derstood, gives  by  itself  no  conclusive  light.  It  may, 
no  doubt,  give  a  directing  light  in  some  cases,  but  not 
a  conclusive  light.  It  leaves  us  inconsistent  and  un- 
certain amidst  these  unavoidable  problems.  Yet  upon 
these  questions  most  people  feel  that  something  more 
is  needed  than  the  mood  of  the  moment  or  the  spin 
of  a  coin.     Religious  conviction  may  help  us,  it  may 


6  Mankind  in  the  Making 

stimulate  us  to  press  for  clearer  light  upon  these 
matters,  but  it  certainly  does  not  give  us  any  de- 
cisions. 

It  is  possible  to  be  either  intensely  religious  or  utter- 
ly indifferent  to  religious  matters  and  yet  care  nothing 
for  these  things.  One  may  be  a  Pietist  to  whom  the 
world  is  a  fleeting  show  of  no  importance  whatever, 
or  one  may  say,  "Let  us  eat,  drink,  and  be  merry, 
for  to-morrow  we  die" :  the  net  result  in  regard  to 
my  need  is  the  same.  These  questions  appear  to  be 
on  a  different  plane  from  religion  and  religious  dis- 
cussion; they  look  outward,  while  essentially  religion 
looks  inward  to  the  soul,  and,  given  the  necessary 
temperament,  it  is  possible  to  approach  them  in  an 
unbiassed  manner  from  almost  any  starting-point  of 
religious  profession.  One  man  may  believe  in  the 
immortality  of  the  soul  and  another  may  not ;  one  man 
may  be  a  Swedenborgian,  another  a  Roman  Catholic, 
another  a  Calvinistic  Methodist,  another  an  English 
High  Churchman,  another  a  Positivist,  or  a  Parsee, 
or  a  Jew ;  the  fact  remains  that  they  must  go  about 
doing  all  sorts  of  things  in  common  every  day.  They 
may  derive  their  ultimate  motives  and  sanctions  from 
the  most  various  sources,  they  may  worship  in  the 
most  contrasted  temples  and  yet  meet  unanimously  in 
the  market-place  with  a  desire  to  shape  their  general 
activities  to  the  form  of  a  "public  spirited"  life,  and 
when  at  last  the  life  of  every  day  is  summed  up,  "to 
leave  the  world  better  than  they  found  it."  And  it  is 
from  that  most  excellent  expression  I  would  start,  or 


The  New  Republic  7 

rather  from  a  sort  of  amplified  restatement  of  that 
expression — outside  the  province  of  rehgious  discus- 
sion altogether. 

A  man  who  will  build  on  that  expression  as  his 
foundation  in  political  and  social  matters,  has  at  least 
the  possibility  of  agreement  in  the  scheme  of  action 
these  papers  will  unfold.  For  though  we  theorize  it 
is  at  action  that  our  speculations  will  aim.  They  will 
take  the  shape  of  an  organized  political  and  social 
doctrine.  It  will  be  convenient  to  give  this  doctrine 
a  name,  and  for  reasons  that  will  be  clear  enough  to 
those  who  have  read  my  book  Anticipations  this  doc- 
trine will  be  spoken  of  throughout  as  "New  Repub- 
licanism," the  doctrine  of  the  New  Republic. 

The  central  conception  of  this  New  Republicanism 
as  it  has  shaped  itself  in  my  mind,  lies  in  attaching 
pre-eminent  importance  to  certain  aspects  of  human 
life,  and  in  subordinating  systematically  and  always, 
all  other  considerations  to  these  cardinal  aspects.  It 
begins  with  a  way  of  looking  at  life.  It  insists  upon 
that  way,  it  will  regard  no  human  concern  at  all  except 
in  that  way.  And  the  way,  putting  the  thing  as  com- 
pactly as  possible,  is  to  reject  and  set  aside  all  abstract, 
refined,  and  intellectualized  ideas  as  starting  proposi- 
tions, such  ideas  as  Right,  Liberty,  Happiness,  Duty 
or  Beauty,  and  to  hold  fast  to  the  assertion  of  the 
fundamental  nature  of  life  as  a  tissue  and  succession 
of  births.  These  other  things  may  be  important,  they 
may  be  profoundly  important,  but  they  are  not  pri- 
ma.ry.     \Xe  cannot  build  upon  any  one  of  them  and 


8  Mankind  in  the  Making 

get  a  structure  that  will  comprehend  all  the  aspects 
of  life. 

For  the  great  majority  of  mankind  at  least  it  can 
be  held  that  life  resolves  itself  quite  simply  and  obvi- 
ously into  three  cardinal  phases.  There  is  a  period 
of  youth  and  preparation,  a  great  insurgence  of  emo- 
tion and  enterprise  centering  about  the  passion  of 
Love,  and  a  third  period  in  which,  arising  amidst  the 
warmth  and  stir  of  the  second,  interweaving  indeed 
with  the  second,  the  care  and  love  of  offspring  be- 
comes the  central  interest  in  life.  In  the  babble  of 
the  grandchildren,  with  all  the  sons  and  daughters 
grown  and  secure,  the  typical  life  of  humanity  ebbs 
and  ends.  Looked  at  thus  with  a  primary  regard  to 
its  broadest  aspect,  life  is  seen  as  essentially  a  matter 
of  reproduction ;  first  a  growth  and  training  to  that 
end,  then  commonly  mating  and  actual  physical  re- 
production, and  finally  the  consummation  of  these 
things  in  parental  nurture  and  education.  Love,  Home 
and  Children,  these  are  the  heart-words  of  life.  Not 
only  is  the  general  outline  of  the  normal  healthy 
human  life  reproductive,  but  a  vast  proportion  of  the 
infinitely  complex  and  interwoven  interests  that  fill 
that  outline  with  incessant  interest  can  be  shown  by 
a  careful  analysis  to  be  more  or  less  directly  repro- 
ductive also.  The  toil  of  a  man's  daily  work  is  rarely 
for  himself  alone,  it  goes  to  feed,  to  clothe,  to  edu- 
cate those  cardinal  consequences  of  his  being,  his 
children;  he  builds  for  them,  he  plants  for  them,  he 
plans  for  them,  his  social  intercourse,  his  political  in- 


The  New  Republic  9 

terests,  whatever  his  immediate  motives,  tend  finally 
to  secure  their  welfare.  Even  more  obviously  is  this 
the  case  with  his  wife.  Even  in  rest  and  recreation 
life  still  manifests  its  quality;  the  books  the  ordinary 
man  reads  turn  enormously  on  love-making,  his  thea- 
tre has  scarcely  ever  a  play  that  has  not  primarily  a 
strong  love  interest,  his  art  rises  to  its  most  consum- 
mate triumphs  in  Venus  and  Madonna,  and  his  music 
is  saturated  in  love  suggestions.  Not  only  is  this  so 
with  the  right  and  proper  life,  but  the  greater  portion 
of  those  acts  we  call  vice  draw  their  stimulus  and 
pleasure  from  the  impulses  that  subserve  this  sustain- 
ing fact  of  our  being,  and  they  are  vicious  only  be- 
cause they  evade  or  spoil  their  proper  end.  This  is 
really  no  new  discovery  at  all,  only  the  stripping  bare 
of  it  is  new.  In  nearly  every  religious  and  moral 
system  in  the  world  indeed,  the  predominant  mass  of 
the  exposition  of  sin  and  saving  virtue  positively  or 
negatively  centres  upon  birth.  Positively  in  the  enor- 
mous stresses,  the  sacramental  values  which  are  con- 
centrated upon  marriage  and  the  initial  circumstances 
of  being,  and  negatively  in  a  thousand  significant  re- 
pudiations. Even  when  the  devotee  most  strenuously 
renounces  this  world  and  all  its  works,  when  St.  An- 
thony flees  into  the  desert  or  the  pious  Durtal  wrestles 
in  his  cell,  when  the  pale  nun  prays  in  vigil  and  the 
hermit  mounts  his  pillar,  it  is  Celibacy,  that  great 
denial  of  life,  that  sings  through  all  their  struggle, 
it  is  this  business  of  births  as  the  central  fact  of  life 
they  still  have  most  in  mind. 


lo  Mankmd  in  the  Making 

This  is  not  human  hfe  merely,  it  is  all  life.  This 
living  world,  as  the  New  Republican  will  see  it,  is  no 
more  than  a  great  birth-place,  an  incessant  renewal, 
an  undying  fresh  beginning  and  unfolding  of  life. 
Take  away  this  fact  of  birth  and  what  is  there  re- 
maining? A  world  without  flowers,  without  the  sing- 
ing of  birds,  without  the  freshness  of  youth,  with  a 
spring  that  brings  no  seedlings  and  a  year  that  bears 
no  harvest,  without  beginnings  and  without  defeats, 
a  vast  stagnation,  a  universe  of  inconsequent  matter 
— Death.  Not  only  does  the  substance  of  life  vanish 
if  we  eliminate  births  and  all  that  is  related  to  births, 
but  whatever  remains,  if  anything  remains,  of  aesthetic 
and  intellectual  and  spiritual  experience,  collapses  ut- 
terly and  falls  apart,  when  this  essential  substratum 
of  all  experience  is  withdrawn.  .  .  .  So  at  any 
rate  the  world  presents  itself  in  the  view  the  New 
Republican  takes.  And  if  it  should  chance  that  the 
reader  finds  this  ring  untrue  to  him,  then  he  may  take 
it  that  he  stands  outside  us,  that  the  New  Republic 
is  not  for  him. 

It  may  be  submitted  that  this  statement  that  Life 
is  a  texture  of  births  may  be  accepted  by  minds  of 
the  most  divergent  religious  and  philosophical  profes- 
sion. No  fundamental  or  recondite  admissions  are 
proposed  here,  but  only  that  the  every-day  life  for 
every-day  purposes  has  this  shape  and  nature.  The 
utter  materialist  may  say  that  life  to  him  is  a  for- 
tuitous concurrence  of  atoms,  a  chance  kinking  in  the 
universal  fabric  of  matter.    It  is  not  our  present  busi- 


The  New  Republic  ii 

ness  to  confute  him.  The  fact  remains  this  is  the 
form  the  kinking  has  taken.  The  believer,  sedulous 
for  his  soul's  welfare,  may  say  that  Life  is  to  him 
an  arena  of  spiritual  conflict,  but  this  is  the  character 
of  the  conflict,  this  is  the  business  from  which  all  the 
tests  and  exercises  of  his  soul  are  drawn.  ...  It 
matters  not  in  this  present  discussion  if  Life  is  no 
more  than  a  dream;  the  dreaim  is  this. 

And  now  one  comes  to  another  step.  The  reader 
may  give  his  assent  to  this  statement  as  obvious  or 
he  may  guard  his  assent  with  a  qualification  or  so, 
but  I  doubt  if  he  will  deny  it.  No  one,  I  expect,  will 
categorically  deny  it.  But  although  no  one  will  do 
that,  a  great  number  of  people  who  have  not  clearly 
seen  things  in  this  light,  do  in  thought  and  in  many 
details  of  their  practice  follow  a  line  that  is,  in  effect, 
a  flat  denial  of  what  is  here  proposed.  Life  no  doubt 
is  a  fabric  woven  of  births  and  the  struggle  to  main- 
tain and  develop  and  multiply  lives.  It  does  not  follow 
that  life  is  consciously  a  fabric  woven  of  births  and 
the  struggle  to  maintain  and  develop  and  multiply 
lives.  I  do  not  suppose  a  cat  or  a  savage  sees  it  in 
that  light.  A  cat's  standpoint  is  probably  strictly  in- 
dividualistic. She  sees  the  whole  universe  as  a  scheme 
of  more  or  less  useful,  pleasurable  and  interesting 
things  concentrated  upon  her  sensitive  and  interesting 
personality.  With  a  sinuous  determination  she  evades 
disagreeables  and  pursues  delights ;  life  is  to  her  quite 
clearly  and  simply  a  succession  of  pleasures,  sensations 
and  interests,  among  which  interests  there  happen  to 
be — kittens ! 


12  Mankind  in  the  Making 

And  this  way  of  regarding  life  is  by  no  means 
confined  to  animals  and  savages.  I  would  even  go 
so  far  as  to  suggest  that  it  is  only  within  the  last 
hundred  years  that  any  considerable  number  of 
thoughtful  people  have  come  to  look  at  life  steadily 
and  consistently  as  being  shaped  to  this  form,  to  the 
form  of  a  series  of  births,  growths  and  births.  The 
most  general  truths  are  those  last  apprehended.  The 
universal  fact  of  gravitation,  for  example,  which  per- 
vades all  being,  received  its  complete  recognition 
scarcely  two  hundred  years  ago.  And  again  children 
and  savages  live  in  air,  breathe  air,  are  saturated  with 
air,  die  for  five  minutes'  need  of  it,  and  nev^er  definitely 
realize  there  is  such  a  thing  as  air  at  all.  The  vast 
mass  of  human  expression  in  act  and  art  and  literature 
takes  a  narrower  view  than  we  have  here  formulated ; 
it  presents  each  man  not  only  as  isolated  from  and 
antagonized  with  the  world  about  him,  but  as  cut  off 
sharply  and  definitely  from  the  past  before  he  lived 
and  the  future  after  he  is  dead;  it  puts  what  is,  in 
relation  to  the  view  we  have  taken,  a  disproportionate 
amount  of  stress  upon  his  egotism,  upon  the  pursuit 
of  his  self-interest  and  his  personal  virtue  and  his  per- 
sonal fancies,  and  it  ignores  the  fact,  the  familiar  re- 
discovery which  the  nineteenth  century  has  achieved, 
that  he  is  after  all  only  the  transitory  custodian  of  an 
undying  gift  of  life,  an  inheritor  under  conditions,  the 
momentary  voice  and  interpreter  of  a  being  that 
springs  from  the  dawn  of  time  and  lives  in  offspring 
and  thought  and  material  consequence,  for  ever. 


The  New  Repttblic  13 

This  over-accentuation  in  the  past  of  man's  egoistic 
individuaHty,  or,  if  one  puts  it  in  another  way,  this 
unsuspicious  ignorance  of  the  real  nature  of  hfe,  be- 
comes glaringly  conspicuous  in  such  weighed  and 
deliberate  utterances  as  The  Meditations  of  Marcus 
Aurelius.  Throughout  these  frank  and  fundamental 
discourses  one  traces  a  predominant  desire  for  a  per- 
fected inconsequent  egotism.  Body  is  repudiated  as  a 
garment,  position  is  an  accident,  the  past  that  made  us 
exists  not  since  it  is  past,  the  future  exists  not  for  we 
shall  never  see  it;  at  last  nothing  but  the  abstracted 
ego  remains, — a  sort  of  complimentary  Nirvana.  One 
citation  will  serve  to  show  the  colour  of  all  his  thought. 
"A  man,"  he  remarks,  "is  very  devout  to  prevent 
the  loss  of  his  son.  But  I  would  have  you  pray 
rather  against  the  fear  of  losing  him.  Let  this 
be  the  rule  for  your  devotions."^  That  indeed  is  the 
rule  for  all  the  devotions  of  that  departing  generation 
of  wisdom.  Rather  serenity  and  dignity  than  good 
ensuing.  Rather  a  virtuous  man  than  any  resultant 
whatever  from  his  lifetime,  for  the  future  of  the 
world.  It  points  this  disregard  of  the  sequence  of  life 
and  birth  in  favour  of  an  abstract  and  fruitless  virtue, 
it  points  it  indeed  with  a  barbed  point  that  the  son  of 
Marcus  Aurelius  was  the  unspeakable  Commodus,  and 
that  the  Roman  Empire  fell  from  the  temporizing  de- 
tachment of  his  rule  into  a  century  of  disorder  and 
misery. 

To  the  thoughtful  reader  to  whom  these  papers  ap- 

*  The  Meditations  oj  M.  A.  Antoninus,  ix.  40. 


14  Mankind  in  the  Making 

peal,  to  the  reader  whose  mind  is  of  the  modern  cast, 
who  has  surveyed  the  vistas  of  the  geological  record 
and  grasped  the  secular  unfolding  of  the  scheme  of 
life,  who  has  found  with  microscope  and  scalpel  that 
the  same  rhythm  of  birth  and  re-birth  is  woven  into 
the  minutest  texture  of  things  that  has  covered  the 
earth  with  verdure  and  shaped  the  massifs  of  the  Alps, 
to  such  a  man  the  whole  literature  the  world  produced 
until  the  nineteenth  century  had  well  progressed,  must 
needs  be  lacking  in  any  definite  and  pervading  sense 
of  the  cardinal  importance  in  the  world  of  this  central 
reproductive  aspect,  of  births  and  of  the  training  and 
preparation  for  future  births.  All  that  literature, 
great  and  imposing  as  we  are  bound  to  admit  it  is,  has 
an  outlook  less  ample  than  quite  common  men  may 
have  to-day.  It  is  a  literature,  as  we  see  it  in  the 
newer  view,  of  abstracted  personalities  and  of  discon- 
nected passions  and  impressions. 

To  one  extraordinary  and  powerful  mind  in  the 
earlier  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  this  realization 
of  the  true  form  of  life  came  with  quite  overwhelming 
force,  and  that  was  to  Schopenhauer,  surely  at  once 
the  most  acute  and  the  most  biassed  of  mortal  men. 
It  came  to  him  as  a  most  detestable  fact,  because  it 
happened  he  was  an  intensely  egotistical  man.  But 
his  intellect  was  of  that  noble  and  exceptional  sort  that 
aversion  may  tint  indeed  but  cannot  blind,  and  we  owe 
to  him  a  series  of  philosophical  writings,  written  with 
an  instinctive  skill  and  a  clearness  and  a  vigour  un- 
common in  philosophers,  in  which  a  very  complete 


The  New  Republic  15 

statement  of  the  new  view  is  presented  to  the  reader 
in  terms  of  passionate  protest.^  "Why,"  he  asked, 
"must  we  be  for  ever  tortured  by  this  passion  and  de- 
sire to  reproduce  our  kind,  why  are  all  our  pursuits 
tainted  with  this  application,  all  our  needs  deferred  to 
the  needs  of  the  new  generation  that  tramples  on  our 
heels?"  and  he  found  the  answer  in  the  presence  of  an 
overwhelming  Will  to  Live  manifesting  itself  through- 
out the  universe  of  Matter,  thrusting  us  ruthlessly  be- 
fore it,  as  a  strong  swimmer  thrusts  a  wave  before  him 
as  he  swims.  That  the  personal  egotism  should  be 
subordinated  to  and  overwhelmed  by  a  pervading  Will 
to  Live  filled  his  soul  with  passionate  rebellion  and  col- 
oured his  exposition  with  the  hues  of  despair.  But  to 
minds  temperamentally  different  from  his,  minds 
whose  egotism  is  qualified  by  a  more  unselfish  humour, 
it  is  possible  to  avail  one's  self  of  Schopenhauer's 
vision,  without  submitting  one's  self  to  his  conclusions, 
to  see  our  wills  only  as  temporary  manifestations  of  an 
ampler  will,  our  lives  as  passing  phases  of  a  greater 
Life,  and  to  accept  these  facts  even  joyfully,  to  take 
our  places  in  that  larger  scheme  with  a  sense  of  relief 
and  discovery,  to  go  with  that  larger  being,  to  serve 
that  larger  being,  as  a  soldier  marches,  a  mere  unit  in 
the  larger  being  of  his  army,  and  serving  his  army, 
joyfully  into  battle. 

However,  it  is  not  to  Schopenhauer  and  his  writ- 
ings, at  least  among  the  English-speaking  peoples, 
that  this  increasing  realization  of  life  as  essentially  a 

» Die  Welt  ah  Wille  und  Vorstellung. 


1 6  Mankind  in  the  Making 

succession  of  births,  is  chiefly  ascribed.  It  is  mainly, 
as  I  have  already  suggested,  the  result  of  that  great 
expansion  of  our  sense  of  time  and  causation  that  has 
ensued  from  the  idea  of  organic  Evolution.  In  the 
course  of  one  brief  century,  the  human  outlook  upon 
the  order  of  the  world  has  been  profoundly  changed. 
It  is  not  simply  that  it  has  become  much  more  spa- 
cious, it  is  not  only  that  it  has  opened  out  from  the 
little  history  of  a  fev^  thousand  years  to  a  stupendous 
vista  of  ages,  but,  in  addition  to  its  expanded  dimen- 
sions, it  has  experienced  a  change  in  character.  That 
wonderful  and  continually  more  elaborate  and  pene- 
trating analysis  of  the  evolutionary  process  by  Darwin 
and  his  followers  and  successors  and  antagonists,  the 
entire  subordination  of  the  individual  lot  to  the  specific 
destiny  that  these  criticisms  and  researches  have  em- 
phasized, has  warped  and  altered  the  aspect  of  a  thou- 
sand human  affairs.  It  has  made  reasonable  and  in 
order  what  Schopenhauer  found  so  suggestively  per- 
plexing, it  has  dispelled  problems  that  have  seemed 
insoluble  mysteries  to  many  generations  of  men.  I  do 
not  say  it  has  solved  them,  but  it  has  dispelled  them 
and  made  them  irrelevant  and  uninteresting.  So  long 
as  one  believed  that  life  span  unprogressively  from 
generation  to  generation,  that  generation  followed 
generation  unchangingly  for  ever,  the  enormous  pre- 
ponderance of  sexual  needs  and  emotions  in  life  was  a 
distressing  and  inexplicable  fact — it  was  a  mystery,  it 
was  sin,  it  w^as  the  work  of  the  devil.  One  asked,  why 
does  man  build  houses  that  others  may  live  therein ; 


The  New  Republic  17 

plant  trees  whose  fruit  he  will  never  see?  And  all 
the  toil  and  ambition,  the  stress  and  hope  of  ex- 
istence, seemed,  so  far  as  this  life  went,  and  before 
these  new  lights  came,  a  mere  sacrifice  to  this  pointless 
reiteration  of  lives,  this  cosmic  crambe  repetita.  To 
perceive  this  aspect,  and  to  profess  an  entire  detach- 
ment from  the  whole  vacuous  business  was  considered 
by  a  large  proportion  of  the  more  thoughtful  people  of 
the  world  the  supreme  achievement  of  philosophy. 
The  acme  of  old-world  wisdom,  the  ultimate  mystery 
of  Oriental  philosophy  is  to  contemn  women  and  off- 
spring, to  abandon  costume,  cleanliness,  and  all  the 
decencies  and  dignities  of  life,  and  to  crawl,  as  scorn- 
fully as  possible,  but  at  any  rate  to  crawl  out  of  all 
these  earthly  shows  and  snares  (which  so  obviously 
lead  to  nothing),  into  the  nearest  tub. 

And  the  amazing  revelation  of  our  days  is  that  they 
do  not  lead  to  nothing!  Directly  the  discovery  is 
made  clear — and  it  is,  I  firmly  believe,  the  crowning 
glory  of  the  nineteenth  century  to  have  established  this 
discovery  for  all  time — that  one  generation  does  not 
follow  another  in  fac  simile,  directly  we  come  within 
sight  of  the  reasonable  persuasion  that  each  genera- 
tion is  a  step,  a  definite  measurable  step,  and  each  birth 
an  unprecedented  experiment,  directly  it  grows  clear 
that  instead  of  being  in  an  eddy  merely,  we  are  for  all 
our  eddying  moving  forward  upon  a  wide  voluminous 
current,  then  all  these  things  are  changed. 

That  change  alters  the  perspective  of  every  human 
affair.     Things  that  seemed  permanent  and  final,  be- 


1 8  Mankind  in  the  Making 

come  unsettled  and  provisional.  Social  and  political 
effort  are  seen  from  a  new  view-point.  Everywhere 
the  old  direction  posts,  the  old  guiding  marks,  have 
got  out  of  line  and  askew.  And  it  is  out  of  the  con- 
flict of  the  new  view  with  the  old  institutions  and 
formulae,  that  there  arises  the  discontent  and  the  need, 
and  the  attempt  at  a  wider  answer,  which  this  phrase 
and  suggestion  of  the  "New  Republic"  is  intended  to 
express. 

Every  part  contributes  to  the  nature  of  the  whole, 
and  if  the  whole  of  life  is  an  evolving  succession  of 
births,  then  not  only  must  a  man  in  his  individual 
capacity  (physically  as  parent,  doctor,  food  dealer, 
food  carrier,  home  builder,  protector,  or  mentally  as 
teacher,  news  dealer,  author,  preacher)  contribute  to 
births  and  growths  and  the  future  of  mankind,  but  the 
collective  aspects  of  man,  his  social  and  political  or- 
ganizations must  also  be,  in  the  essence,  organizations 
that  more  or  less  profitably  and  more  or  less  intention- 
ally, set  themselves  towards  this  end.  They  are 
finally  concerned  with  the  birth  and  with  the  sound 
development  towards  still  better  births,  of  human  lives, 
just  as  every  implement  in  the  toolshed  of  a  seedsman's 
nursery,  even  the  hoe  and  the  roller,  is  concerned 
finally  with  the  seeding  and  with  the  sound  develop- 
ment towards  still  better  seeding  of  plants.  The  pri- 
vate and  personal  motive  of  the  seedsman  in  procuring 
and  using  these  tools  may  be  avarice,  ambition,  a  re- 
ligious belief  in  the  saving  efficacy  of  nursery  keeping 
or  a  simple  passion  for  bettering  flowers,  that  does 


The  New  Republic  19 

not  affect  the  definite  final  purpose  of  his  outfit 
of  tools. 

And  just  as  we  might  judge  completely  and  criticise 
and  improve  that  outfit  from  an  attentive  study  of  the 
welfare  of  plants  and  with  an  entire  disregard  of  his 
remoter  motives,  so  we  may  judge  all  collective  human 
enterprises  from  the  standpoint  of  an  attentive  study 
of  human  births  and  development.  Any  collective 
human  enterprise,  institution,  movement,  party  or 
state,  is  to  be  judged  as  a  whole  and  completely,  as  it 
conduces  more  or  less  to  wholesome  and  hopeful  births, 
and  according  to  the  qualitative  and  quantitative  ad- 
vance due  to  its  influence  made  by  each  generation  of 
citizens  born  under  its  influence  towards  a  higher  and 
ampler  standard  of  life. 

Or  putting  the  thing  in  a  slightly  different  phras- 
ing, the  New  Republican  idea  amounts  to  this :  the 
serious  aspect  of  our  private  lives,  the  general  aspect 
of  all  our  social  and  co-operative  undertakings,  is 
to  prepare  as  well  as  we  possibly  can  a  succeeding 
generation,  which  shall  prepare  still  more  capably  for 
still  better  generations  to  follow.  We  are  passing  as 
a  race  out  of  a  state  of  affairs  when  the  unconscious 
building  of  the  future  was  attained  by  individualistic 
self-seeking  (altogether  unenlightened  or  enlightened 
only  by  the  indirect  moralizing  influence  of  the  pa- 
triotic instinct  and  religion)  into  a  clear  consciousness 
of  our  co-operative  share  in  that  process.  That  is  the 
essential  idea  my  New  Republic  would  personify  and 
embody.     In  the  past  man  was  made,  generation  after 


20  Mankind  in  the  Making 

generation,  by  forces  beyond  his  knowledge  and  con- 
trol. Now  a  certain  number  of  men  are  coming  to  a 
provisional  understanding  of  some  at  least  of  these 
forces  that  go  to  the  Making  of  Man.  To  some  of  us 
there  is  being  given  the  privilege  and  responsibility  of 
knowledge.  We  may  plead  lack  of  will  or  lack  of 
moral  impetus,  but  we  can  no  longer  plead  ignorance. 
Just  as  far  as  our  light  upon  the  general  purpose  goes, 
just  so  far  goes  our  responsibility  (whether  we  respect 
it  or  not)  to  shape  and  subdue  our  wills  to  the  Making 
of  Mankind. 

Directly  the  man,  who  has  found  akin  to  himself  and 
who  has  accepted  and  assimilated  this  new  view,  turns 
to  the  affairs  of  the  political  world,  to  the  general  pro- 
fessions of  our  great  social  and  business  undertakings, 
and  to  the  broad  conventions  of  human  conduct,  he  will 
find,  I  think,  a  very  wide  discrepancy  from  the  implica- 
tions of  this  view.  He  will  find — the  New  Republican 
finds — that  the  declared  aims  and  principles  of  the 
larger  amount  of  our  social  and  political  effort  are  as- 
tonishingly limited  and  unsatisfactory,  astonishingly 
irrelevant  to  the  broad  reality  of  Life.  He  w^ill  find 
great  masses  of  men  embarked  collectively  upon  enter- 
prises that  will  seem  to  his  eyes  to  have  no  definable 
relation  to  this  real  business  of  the  world,  or  only  the 
most  accidental  relationship,  he  will  find  others  in  par- 
tial lop-sided  co-operation  or  unintelligently  half  help- 
ful and  half  obstructive,  and  he  will  find  still  other 
movements  and  developments  which  set  quite  in  the 
opposite    direction,    which    make   neither    for    sound 


The  New  Republic  21 

births  nor  sound  growth,  but  through  the  thinnest 
shams  of  excuse  and  purpose,  through  the  most 
hypnotic  and  unreal  of  suggestions  and  motives, 
directly  and  even  plainly  towards  waste,  towards  steril- 
ity, towards  futility  and  death  and  extinction. 

But  not  deliberately  towards  Death.  It  is  only  in 
the  theoretical  aspirations  of  Schopenhauer  that  he 
will  find  an  expression  of  conscious  and  resolved  op- 
position to  the  pervading  will  and  purpose  in  things. 
In  the  common  affairs  of  the  world  he  will  find  neither 
deliberate  opposition  nor  deliberate  co-operation, 
chance  opposition  indeed  and  chance  co-operation,  but 
for  the  most  part  only  a  complete  unconsciousness,  a 
blind  irrelevance  or  a  purely  accidental  accordance  to 
the  essential  aspect  of  Life. 

Take,  for  example,  the  great  enthusiasm  that  set  all 
England  waving  bunting  in  June,  1902.  It  was  made 
clear  to  the  most  unwilling  observer  that  the  great 
mass  of  English  people  consider  themselves  aggre- 
gated together  in  one  nation  mainly  to  support,  hon- 
our, and  obey  a  King,  and  that  they  rejoice  in  this 
conception  of  their  national  purpose.  Great  sums  of 
money  were  spent  to  emphasize  this  purpose,  public 
work  of  all  sorts  was  dislocated,  and  the  channels  of 
public  discussion  clogged  and  choked.  A  discussion 
of  the  education  of  the  next  generation,  a  matter  of 
supreme  interest  from  the  New  Republican  point  of 
view,  passed  from  public  sight  amidst  the  happy 
tumults  and  splendours  of  the  time.  The  land  was 
filled  with  poetry  in  the  Monarch's  praise,  bad  beyond 


22  Mankind  in  the  Making 

any  suspicion  of  insincerity.  All  that  was  certainly 
great  in  the  land,  all  that  has  any  hold  upon  the  mo- 
tives and  confidence  of  the  English,  gathered  itself 
into  a  respectful  proximity,  assumed  attitudes  of  rev- 
erent subordination  to  the  Monarch.  All  that  was 
eminent  in  science  and  literature  and  art,  the  galaxy 
of  the  episcopate,  the  crowning  intellectualities  of  the 
army,  came  to  these  rites,  clad  in  robes  and  raiment 
that  no  sane  person  would  ever  voluntarily  assume  in 
public  except  under  circumstances  of  extreme  neces- 
sity. .  .  .  The  whole  business  was  conducted  with 
a  zest  and  gravity  that  absolutely  forbids  the  theory 
that  it  was  a  mere  formality,  a  curious  survival  of 
mediaevalism  cherished  by  a  country  that  makes  no 
breaks  with  its  past.  The  spirit  and  idea  of  the  whole 
thing  was  intensely  real  and  contemporary;  one  could 
believe  only  that  those  who  took  part  in  it  regarded  it 
as  a  matter  of  primary  importance,  as  one  of  the  car- 
dinal things  for  which  they  existed.  The  alternative 
is  to  imagine  that  they  believe  nothing  to  be  of  primary 
importance  in  this  world;  a  quite  incredible  levity  of 
soul  to  ascribe  to  all  those  great  and  distinguished 
people. 

But  it  reflects  not  at  all  upon  the  high  intelligence, 
the  unobtrusive  but  sterling  moral  qualities,  the  tact, 
dignity,  and  personal  charm  of  the  central  figure  in 
their  pageantries,  a  charm  the  pathetic  circumstances 
of  his  unseasonable  illness  very  greatly  enhanced,  if 
the  New  Republican  fails  to  consider  these  ceremonials 
of  primary  importance,  if  he  declines  to  see  them  as 


The  New  Republic  23 

of  any  necessary  importance  at  all,  until  it  has  been 
conclusively  shown  that  they  do  minister  to  the  better- 
ing of  births  and  of  the  lives  intervening  between  birth 
and  birth.  On  the  surface  they  do  not  do  that.  Un- 
less they  can  be  shown  to  do  that  they  are  dissipations 
of  energy,  they  are  irrelevant  and  wrong,  from  the 
New  Republican  point  of  view.  The  New  Republican 
can  take  no  part  in  these  things,  or  only  a  very  grudg- 
ing and  qualified  part,  on  his  way  to  real  service.  He 
may  or  he  may  not,  after  deliberate  examination,  leave 
these  things  on  one  side,  unchallenged  but  ignored. 

It  may  be  urged  that  all  the  subserviences  that  dis- 
tinguish our  kingdom  and  that  become  so  amazingly 
conspicuous  about  a  coronation,  the  kissing  of  hands, 
the  shambling  upon  knees,  the  crawling  of  body  and 
mind,  the  systematic  encouragement  of  that  undigni- 
fied noisiness  that  nowadays  distinguishes  the  popular 
rejoicings  of  our  imperial  people,  are  simply  a  proof 
of  the  earnest  preoccupation  of  our  judges,  bishops, 
and  leaders  and  great  officers  of  all  sorts  with  remoter 
and  nobler  aims.  The  kingdom  happens  to  exist,  and 
it  would  be  complex  and  troublesome  to  get  rid  of  it. 
They  stand  these  things,  they  get  done  with  these 
things,  and  so  are  able  to  get  to  their  work.  The 
paraphernalia  of  a  Court,  the  sham  scale  of  honours, 
the  submissions,  the  ceremonial  subjection,  are,  it  is 
argued,  entirely  irrelevant  to  the  purpose  and  honour 
of  our  race,  but  then  so  would  rebellion  against  these 
things  be  also  irrelevant  and  secondary.  To  submit 
or  to  rebel  is  a  diversion  of  our  energies  from  the  real 


24  Mankind  in  the  Making 

purpose  in  things,  and  of  the  two  it  is  infinitely 
less  bother  to  submit.  In  private  conversation,  I  find, 
this  is  the  line  nine  out  of  ten  of  the  King's  servants 
will  take.  They  will  tell  you  the  public  understands; 
the  thing  is  a  mere  excuse  for  festivity  and  colour; 
their  loyalty  is  of  a  piece  with  their  Fifth  of  No- 
vember anti-popery.  They  will  tell  you  the  peers 
understand,  the  bishops  understand,  the  coronating 
archbishop  has  his  tongue  in  his  cheek.  They  all 
understand — men  of  the  world  together.  The  King 
understands,  a  most  admirable  gentleman,  who  submits 
to  these  traditional  things,  but  who  admits  his  prefer- 
ence is  for  the  simple,  pure  delight  of  the  incognito, 
for  being  "plain  Mr.  Jones."    .    .    . 

It  may  be  so.  Though  the  psychologist  will  tell  you 
that  a  man  who  behaves  consistently  as  though  he  be- 
lieved in  a  thing,  will  end  in  believing  it.  Assuredly 
whatever  these  others  do,  the  New  Republican  must 
understand.  In  his  inmost  soul  there  must  be  no  loy- 
alty or  submission  to  any  king  or  colour,  save  only  if 
it  conduces  to  the  service  of  the  future  of  the  race.  In 
the  New  Republic  all  kings  are  provisional,  if,  indeed 
— and  this  I  shall  discuss  in  a  later  paper — they  can 
be  regarded  as  serviceable  at  all. 

And  just  as  kingship  is  a  secondary  and  debatable 
thing  to  the  New  Republican,  to  every  man,  that  is, 
whom  the  spirit  of  the  new  knowledge  has  taken  for 
its  work,  so  also  are  the  loyalties  of  nationality,  and 
^1  our  local  and  party  adhesions. 

Much  that  passes  for  patriotism  is  no  more  than  a 


The  New  Republic  25 

generalized  jealousy  rather  gorgeously  clad.  Amidst 
the  collapse  of  the  old  Individualistic  Humanitarian- 
ism,  the  Rights  of  Man,  Human  Equality,  and  the  rest 
of  those  broad  generalizations  that  served  to  keep  to- 
gether so  many  men  of  good  intention  in  the  age  that 
has  come  to  its  end,  there  has  been  much  hasty  run- 
ning to  obvious  shelters,  and  many  men  have  been 
forced  to  take  refuge  under  this  echoing  patriotism — 
for  want  of  a  better  gathering  place.  It  is  like  an 
incident  during  an  earthquake,  when  men  who  have 
abandoned  a  cleft  fortress  will  shelter  in  a  drinking 
bothy.  But  the  very  upheavals  that  have  shattered 
the  old  fastnesses  of  altruistic  men,  will  be  found  pres- 
ently to  be  taking  the  shape  of  a  new  gathering  place 
— and  of  this  the  New  Republic  presents  an  early  guess 
and  anticipation.  I  do  not  see  how  men,  save  in  the 
most  unexpected  emergency,  can  be  content  to  accept 
such  an  artificial  convention  as  modern  patriotism  for 
one  moment.  On  the  one  hand  there  are  the  patriots 
of  nationality  who  would  have  us  believe  that  the  mis- 
cellany of  European  squatters  in  the  Transvaal  are  one 
nation  and  those  in  Cape  Colony  another,  and  on  the 
other  the  patriots  of  Empire  who  would  have  me,  for 
example,  hail  as  my  fellow-subjects  and  collaborators 
in  man-making  a  host  of  Tamil-speaking,  Tamil-think- 
ing Dravadians,  while  separating  me  from  every  Eng- 
lish-speaking, English-thinking  person  who  lives  south 
of  the  Great  Lakes.  So  long  as  men  are  content  to 
work  in  the  grooves  set  for  them  by  dead  men,  to 
derive  all  their  significances  from  the  past,  to  accept 


26  Mankind  in  the  Making 

whatever  is  as  right  and  to  drive  along  before  the 
compulsions  of  these  acquiescences,  they  may  do  so. 
But  directly  they  take  to  themselves  the  New  Repub- 
lican idea,  directly  they  realize  that  life  is  something 
more  than  passing  the  time,  that  it  is  constructive  with 
its  direction  in  the  future,  then  these  things  slip  from 
them  as  Christian's  burthen  fell  from  him  at  the  very 
outset  of  his  journey.  Until  grave  cause  has  been 
shown  to  the  contrary,  there  is  every  reason  why  all 
men  who  speak  the  same  language,  think  the  same 
literature,  and  are  akin  in  blood  and  spirit,  and  who 
have  arrived  at  the  great  constructive  conception  that 
so  many  minds  nowadays  are  reaching,  should  entirely 
disregard  these  old  separations.  If  the  old  traditions 
do  no  harm  there  is  no  reason  to  touch  them,  any  more 
than  there  is  to  abolish  the  boundary  between  this 
ancient  and  invincible  kingdom  of  Kent  in  which  I 
write  and  that  extremely  inferior  country,  England, 
which  was  conquered  by  the  Normans  and  brought 
under  the  feudal  system.  But  so  soon  as  these  old  tra- 
ditions obstruct  sound  action,  so  soon  as  it  is  necessary 
to  be  rid  of  them,  we  must  be  prepared  to  sacrifice  our 
archaeological  emotions  ruthlessly  and  entirely. 

And  these  repudiations  extend  also  to  the  political 
parties  that  struggle  to  realize  themselves  within  the 
forms  of  our  established  state.  There  is  not  in  Great 
Britain,  and  I  understand  there  is  not  in  America,  any 
party,  any  section,  any  group,  any  single  politician 
even,  based  upon  the  manifest  trend  and  purpose  of 
life  as  it  appears  in  the  modern  view.     The  necessities 


The  New  Republic  27 

of  continuity  in  public  activity  and  of  a  glaring  con- 
sistency in  public  profession,  have  so  far  prevented  any 
such  fundamental  reconstruction  as  the  new  generation 
requires.  One  hears  of  Liberty,  of  Compromise,  of 
Imperial  Destinies  and  Imperial  Unity,  one  hears  of 
undying  loyalty  to  the  Memory  of  Mr,  Gladstone  and 
the  inalienable  right  of  Ireland  to  a  separate  national 
existence.  One  hears,  too,  of  the  sacred  principle  of 
Free  Trade,  of  Empires  and  Zollvereins,  and  the 
Rights  of  the  Parent  to  blockade  the  education  of  his 
children,  but  one  hears  nothing  of  the  greater  end.  At 
the  best  all  the  objects  of  our  political  activity  can  be 
but  means  to  that  end,  their  only  claim  to  our  recogni- 
tion can  be  their  adequacy  to  that  end,  and  none  of 
these  vociferated  "cries,"  these  party  labels,  these  pro- 
gramme items,  are  ever  propounded  to  us  in  that  way. 
I  cannot  see  how,  in  England  at  any  rate,  a  serious  and 
perfectly  honest  man,  holding  as  true  that  ampler  view 
of  life  I  have  suggested,  can  attach  himself  loyally  to 
any  existing  party  or  faction.  At  the  utmost  he  may 
find  their  faction-fighting  may  be  turned  for  a  time 
towards  his  remoter  ends.  These  parties  derive  from 
that  past  when  the  new  view  of  life  had  yet  to  estab- 
lish itself,  they  carry  faded  and  obliterated  banners 
that  the  glare  and  dust  of  conflict,  the  vote-storms  of 
great  campaigns,  have  robbed  long  since  of  any  colour 
of  reality  they  once  possessed.  They  express  no  crea- 
tive purpose  now,  whatever  they  did  in  their  inception, 
they  point  towards  no  constructive  ideals.  Essentially 
they  are  things  for  the  museum  or  the  bonfire,  what- 


28  Mankind  in  the  Making 

ever  momentary  expediency  may  hold  back  the  New 
RepubHcan  from  an  unquahfied  advocacy  of  such  a 
destination.  The  old  party  fabrics  are  no  more  than 
dead  rotting  things,  upon  which  a  great  tangle  of  per- 
sonal jealousies,  old  grudges,  thorny  nicknames, 
prickly  memories,  family  curses,  Judas  betrayals  and 
sacred  pledges,  a  horrible  rubbish  thicket,  maintains  a 
saprophytic  vitality. 

It  is  quite  possible  I  misjudge  the  thing  altogether. 
Sir  Henry  Campbell-Bannerman,  for  example,  may 
hide  the  profoundest  and  most  wide-reaching  aims  be- 
neath his  superficial  effect  of  utter  superficiality.  His 
impersonation  of  an  amiable,  spirited,  self-conscious, 
land-owning  gentleman  with  a  passion  for  justice  in 
remote  places  and  a  whimsical  dislike  of  motor  cars  in 
his  immediate  neighbourhood,  may  veil  the  operations 
of  a  stupendous  intelligence  bent  upon  the  regeneration 
of  the  world.  It  may  do,  but  if  it  does,  it  is  a  very 
amazing  and  purposeless  impersonation.  I  at  any  rate 
do  not  believe  that  it  does.  I  do  not  believe  that  he 
or  any  other  Liberal  leader  or  any  Conservative  minis- 
ter has  any  comprehensive  aim  at  all — as  we  of  the 
new  generation  measure  comprehensiveness.  These 
parties,  and  the  phrases  of  party  exposition — in  Amer- 
ica just  as  in  England — date  from  the  days  of  the  lim- 
ited outlook.  They  display  no  consciousness  of  the 
new  dissent.  They  are  absorbed  in  the  long  standing 
game,  the  getting  in,  the  turning  out,  the  contests  and 
governments,  that  has  just  about  the  same  relation  to 
the  new  perception  of  affairs,  to  the  real  drift  of  life. 


The  New  Republic  29 

as  the  game  of  cricket  with  the  wheel  as  a  wicket 
would  have  to  the  destinies  of  a  ship.  They  find  their 
game  highly  interesting  and  no  doubt  they  play  it  with 
remarkable  wit,  skill  and  spirit,  but  they  entirely  dis- 
regard the  increasing  number  of  passengers  who  are 
concerning  themselves  with  the  course  and  destination 
of  the  ship. 

Those  particular  passengers  in  the  figure,  present 
the  New  Republic.  It  is  a  dissension,  an  inquiry,  it  is 
the  vague  unconsolidated  matter  for  a  new  direction. 
"We  who  are  young,"  says  the  spirit  of  the  New  Re- 
public, "we  who  are  in  earnest  can  no  more  compass 
our  lives  under  these  old  kingships  and  loyalties,  under 
these  old  leaders  and  these  old  traditions,  constitutions 
and  pledges,  with  their  party  liabilities,  their  national 
superstitions,  their  rotting  banners  and  their  accumu- 
lating legacy  of  feuds  and  lies,  than  we  can  pretend 
we  are  indeed  impassioned  and  wholly  devoted  subjects 
of  King  Edward,  spending  our  lives  in  the  service  of 
his  will.  It  is  not  that  we  have  revolted  from  these 
things,  it  is  not  that  we  have  grown  askew  to  them  and 
that  patching  and  amendment  will  serve  our  need ;  it  is 
that  we  have  travelled  outside  them  altogether— almost 
inadvertently,  but  quite  beyond  any  chance  of  return  to 
a  simple  acceptance  again.  We  are  no  more  disposed 
to  call  ourselves  Liberals  or  Conservatives  and  to  be 
stirred  to  party  passion  at  the  clash  of  these  names, 
than  we  are  to  fight  again  the  battles  of  the  Factio 
Albata  or  the  Factio  Prasina.  These  current  dramas, 
these  current  conflicts   seem   scarcely   less   factitious. 


30  Mankind  in  the  Making 

Men  without  faith  may  be  content  to  spend  their  Hves 
for  things  only  half  believed  in,  and  for  causes  that  are 
contrived.  But  that  is  not  our  quality.  We  want 
reality  because  we  have  faith,  we  seek  the  beginning  of 
realism  in  social  and  political  life,  we  seek  it  and  we 
are  resolved  to  find  it." 

So  we  attempt  to  give  a  general  expression  to  the 
forces  that  are  new  at  this  time,  to  render  something 
at  least  of  the  spirit  of  the  New  Republic  in  a  prema- 
ture and  experimental  utterance.  It  is,  at  any  rate, 
a  spirit  that  finds  itself  out  of  intimacy  and  co-ordina- 
tion with  all  the  older  movements  of  the  world,  that 
sees  all  pre-existing  formulae  and  political  constitutions 
and  political  parties  and  organizations  rather  as  in- 
struments or  obstacles  than  as  guiding  lines  and  prece- 
dents for  its  new  developing  will,  its  will  which  will 
carry  it  at  last  irresistibly  to  the  conscious  and  delib- 
erate making  of  the  future  of  man.  "We  are  here  to 
get  better  births  and  a  better  result  from  the  births  we 
get ;  each  one  of  us  is  going  to  set  himself  immediately 
to  that,  using  whatever  power  he  finds  to  his  hand," 
such  is  the  form  its  will  must  take.  And  such  being 
its  will  and  spirit  these  papers  will  address  themselves 
comprehensively  to  the  problem,  What  will  the  New 
Republic  do?  All  the  rest  of  this  series  will  be  a  dis- 
cussion of  the  forces  that  go  to  the  making  of  man, 
and  how  far  and  how  such  a  New  Republic  might  seek 
to  lay  its  hands  upon  them. 

It  is  for  the  adversary  to  explain  how  presumptuous 
such  an  enterprise  must  be.     But  presumption  is  ine- 


The  New  Repttblic  31 

radically  interwoven  with  every  beginning  that  the 
world  has  ever  seen.  I  venture  to  think  that  even  to 
a  reader  who  does  not  accept  or  sympathize  with  the 
conception  of  this  New  Republic,  a  general  review  of 
current  movements  and  current  interpretations  of  mo- 
rality from  this  new  standpoint  may  be  suggestive  and 
interesting.  Assuredly  it  is  only  by  some  such  general 
revision,  if  not  on  these  lines  then  on  others,  that  a 
practicable  way  of  escape  is  to  be  found  for  any  one, 
from  that  base  and  shifty  opportunism  in  public  and 
social  matters,  that  predominance  of  fluctuating  aims 
and  spiritless  conformities,  in  which  so  many  of  us, 
without  any  great  positive  happiness  at  all  to  reward 
us  for  the  sacrifice  we  are  making,  bury  the  solitary 
talents  of  our  lives. 


II 

The  Problem  of  the  Birth  Supply 

Within  the  last  minute  seven  new  citizens  were  born 
into  that  great  Enghsh-speaking  community  which 
is  scattered  under  various  flags  and  governments 
throughout  the  world.  And  according  to  the  line  of 
thought  developed  in  the  previous  paper  we  perceive 
that  the  real  and  ultimate  business,  so  far  as  this  world 
goes,  of  every  statesman,  every  social  organizer,  every 
philanthropist,  every  business  manager,  every  man 
who  lifts  his  head  for  a  moment  from  the  mean  pursuit 
of  his  immediate  personal  interests,  from  the  gratifica- 
tion of  his  private  desires,  is,  as  the  first  and  immediate 
thing,  to  do  his  best  for  these  new-comers,  to  get  the 
very  best  result,  so  far  as  his  powers  and  activities  can 
contribute  to  it,  from  their  undeveloped  possibilities. 
And  in  the  next  place,  as  a  remoter,  but  perhaps  finally 
more  fundamental  duty,  he  has  to  inquire  what  may  be 
done  individually  or  collectively  to  raise  the  standard 
and  quality  of  the  average  birth.  All  the  great  con- 
cerns of  life  work  out  with  a  very  little  analysis  to  that, 
even  our  wars,  our  orgies  of  destruction,  have,  at  the 
back  of  them,  a  claim,  an  intention,  however  futile  in 
its  conception  and  disastrous  in  its  consequences,  to 
establish    a    wider    security,    to    destroy    a    standing 

32 


The  Problem  of  the  Birth  Supply    33 

menace,  to  open  new  paths  and  possibilities,  in  the  in- 
terest of  the  generations  still  to  come.  One  may  pre- 
sent the  whole  matter  in  a  simplified  picture  by  imagin- 
ing all  our  statesmen,  our  philanthropists  and  public 
men,  our  parties  and  institutions  gathered  into  one 
great  hall,  and  into  this  hall  a  huge  spout,  that  no  man 
can  stop,  discharges  a  baby  every  eight  seconds.  That 
is,  I  hold,  a  permissible  picture  of  human  life,  and 
whatever  is  not  represented  at  all  in  that  picture  is  a 
divergent  and  secondary  concern.  Our  success  or  fail- 
ure with  that  unending  stream  of  babies  is  the  measure 
of  our  civilization ;  every  institution  stands  or  falls  by 
its  contribution  to  that  result,  by  the  improvement  of 
the  children  born,  or  by  the  improvement  in  the  quality 
of  births  attained  under  its  influence. 

To  begin  these  speculations  in  logical  order  we  must 
begin  at  the  birth  point,  we  must  begin  by  asking  how 
much  may  we  hope,  now  or  at  a  later  time,  to  improve 
the  supply  of  that  raw  material  which  is  perpetually 
dumped  upon  our  hands?  Can  we  raise,  and  if  so, 
what  can  we  do  to  raise  the  quality  of  the  average 
birth? 

This  speculation  is  as  old  at  least  as  Plato,  and  as 
living  as  the  seven  or  eight  babies  born  into  the 
English-speaking  world  since  the  reader  began  this 
Paper.  The  conclusion  that  if  we  could  prevent  or 
discourage  the  inferior  sorts  of  people  from  having 
children,  and  if  we  could  stimulate  and  encourage  the 
superior  sorts  to  increase  and  multiply,  we  should  raise 
the  general  standard  of  the  race,  is  so  simple,  so  ob- 


34  Mankind  in  the  Making 

vious,  that  in  every  age  I  suppose  there  have  been 
voices  asking  in  amazement,  why  the  thing  is  not 
done?  It  is  so  usual  to  answer  that  it  is  not  done  on 
account  of  popular  ignorance,  public  stupidity,  re- 
ligious prejudice  or  superstition,  that  I  shall  not  apolo- 
gize for  giving  some  little  space  here  to  the  suggestion 
that  in  reality  it  is  not  done  for  quite  a  different 
reason. 

We  blame  the  popular  mind  overmuch.  Earnest  but 
imperfect  men,  with  honest  and  reasonable  but  imper- 
fect proposals  for  bettering  the  world,  are  all  too  apt 
to  raise  this  bitter  cry  of  popular  stupidity,  of  the 
sheep-like  quality  of  common  men.  An  unjustifiable 
persuasion  of  moral  and  intellectual  superiority  is  one 
of  the  last  infirmities  of  innovating  minds.  We  may 
be  right,  but  we  must  be  provably,  demonstrably  and 
overpoweringly  right  before  we  are  justified  in  calling 
the  dissentient  a  fool.  I  am  one  of  those  who  believe 
firmly  in  the  invincible  nature  of  truth,  but  a  truth  that 
is  badly  put  is  not  a  truth,  but  an  infertile  hybrid  lie. 
Before  we  m«n  of  the  study  blame  the  general  body 
of  people  for  remaining  unaffected  by  reforming  pro- 
posals of  an  almost  obvious  advantage,  it  would  be  well 
if  we  were  to  change  our  standpoint  and  examine  our 
machinery  at  the  point  of  application.  A  rock-drilling 
machine  may  be  excellently  invented  and  in  the  most 
perfect  order  except  for  a  want  of  hardness  in  the  drill, 
and  yet  there  will  remain  an  unpierced  rock  as  obdurate 
as  the  general  public  to  so  many  of  our  innovations. 

I  believe  that  if  a  canvass  of  the  entire  civilized 


The  Problem  of  the  Birth  Supply    35 

world  were  put  to  the  vote  in  this  matter,  the  proposi- 
tion that  it  is  desirable  that  the  better  sort  of  people 
should  intermarry  and  have  plentiful  children,  and  that 
the  inferior  sort  of  people  should  abstain  from  multi- 
plication, would  be  carried  by  an  overwhelming  ma- 
jority. They  might  disagree  with  Plato's  methods,^ 
but  they  would  certainly  agree  to  his  principle.  And 
that  this  is  not  a  popular  error  Mr.  Francis  Galton  has 
shown.  He  has  devoted  a  very  large  amount  of  en- 
ergy and  capacity  to  the  vivid  and  convincing  presenta- 
tion of  this  idea,  and  to  its  courageous  propagation. 
His  Huxley  Lecture  to  the  Anthropological  Institute 
in  1901  ^  puts  the  whole  matter  as  vividly  as  it  ever 
can  be  put.  He  classifies  humanity  about  their  aver- 
age in  classes  which  he  indicates  by  the  letters  R  S  T 
U  V  rising  above  the  average  and  r  s  t  u  v  falling 
below,  and  he  saturates  the  whole  business  in  quantita- 
tive colour.  Indeed,  Mr.  Galton  has  drawn  up  certain 
definite  proposals.  He  has  suggested  that  "noble  fam- 
ilies" should  collect  "fine  specimens  of  humanity" 
around  them,  employing  these  fine  specimens  in  menial 
occupations  of  a  light  and  comfortable  sort,  that  will 
leave  a  sufficient  portion  of  their  energies  free  for  the 
multiplication  of  their  superior  type.  "Promising 
young  couples"  might  be  given  "healthy  and  conven- 
ient houses  at  low  rentals,"  he  suggests,  and  no  doubt 
it  could  be  contrived  that  they  should  pay  their  rent 
partly  or  entirely  per  stone  of  family  annually  pro- 
duced.    And  he  has  also  proposed  that  "diplomas" 

*  The  Republic,  Bk.  V.  '  Nature,  vol.  Ixiv.  p.  659. 


36  Mankind  in  the  Making 

should  be  granted  to  young  men  and  women  of  high 
class — big  S  and  upward — and  that  they  should  be 
encouraged  to  intermarry  young.  A  scheme  of  "dow- 
ries" for  diploma  holders  would  obviously  be  the  sim- 
plest thing  in  the  world.  And  only  the  rules  for  iden- 
tifying your  great  S  T  U  and  V  in  adolescence,  are 
wanting  from  the  symmetrical  completeness  of  his 
really  very  noble-spirited  and  high-class  scheme. 

At  a  more  popular  level  Mrs.  Victoria  WoodhuU 
Martin  has  battled  bravely  in  the  cause  of  the  same 
foregone  conclusion.  The  work  of  telling  the  world 
what  it  knows  to  be  true  will  never  want  self-sacrific- 
ing workers.  The  Humanitarian  was  her  monthly 
organ  of  propaganda.  Within  its  cover,  which  pre- 
sented a  luminiferous  stark  ideal  of  exemplary  muscu- 
larity, popular  preachers,  popular  bishops,  and  popular 
anthropologists  vied  with  titled  ladies  of  liberal  out- 
look in  the  service  of  this  conception.  There  was 
much  therein  about  the  Rapid  Multiplication  of  the 
Unfit,  a  phrase  never  properly  explained,  and  I  must 
confess  that  the  transitory  presence  of  this  instructive 
little  magazine  in  my  house,  month  after  month  (it  is 
now,  unhappily,  dead),  did  much  to  direct  my  atten- 
tion to  the  gaps  and  difficulties  that  intervene  between 
the  general  proposition  and  its  practical  application  by 
sober  and  honest  men.  One  took  it  up  and  asked  time 
after  time,  "Why  should  there  be  this  queer  flavour 
of  absurdity  and  pretentiousness  about  the  thing?" 
Before  the  Humanitarian  period  I  was  entirely  in 
agreement  with  the  Humanitarian'' s  cause.     It  seemed 


The  Problem  of  the  Birth  Supply    37 

to  me  then  that  to  prevent  the  multiplication  of  people 
below  a  certain  standard,  and  to  encourage  the  multi- 
plication of  exceptionally  superior  people,  was  the  only 
real  and  permanent  way  of  mending  the  ills  of  the 
world.  I  think  that  still.  In  that  way  man  has  risen 
from  the  beasts,  and  in  that  way  men  will  rise  to  be 
over-men.  In  those  days  I  asked  in  amazement  why 
this  thing  was  not  done,  and  talked  the  usual  nonsense 
about  the  obduracy  and  stupidity  of  the  world.  It  is 
only  after  a  considerable  amount  of  thought  and  in- 
quiry that  I  am  beginning  to  understand  why  for  many 
generations,  perhaps,  nothing  of  the  sort  can  possibly 
be  done  except  in  the  most  marginal  and  tentative 
manner. 

If  to-morrow  the  whole  world  were  to  sign  an  unani- 
mous round-robin  to  Mr.  Francis  Galton  and  Mrs. 
Victoria  Woodhull  Martin,  admitting  absolutely  their 
leading  argument  that  it  is  absurd  to  breed  our  horses 
and  sheep  and  improve  the  stock  of  our  pigs  and  fowls, 
while  we  leave  humanity  to  mate  in  the  most  heedless 
manner,  and  if,  further,  the  whole  world,  promising 
obedience,  were  to  ask  these  two  to  gather  together  a 
consultative  committee,  draw  up  a  scheme  of  rules,  and 
start  forthwith  upon  the  great  work  of  improving  the 
human  stock  as  fast  as  it  can  be  done,  if  it  undertook 
that  marriages  should  no  longer  be  made  in  heaven 
or  earth,  but  only  under  licence  from  that  committee, 
I  venture  to  think  that,  after  a  very  brief  epoch  of 
fluctuating  legislation,  this  corpmittee,  except  for  an 
extremely  short  list  of  absolute  prohibitions,  would  de- 


38  Mankind  in  the  Making 

cide  to  leave  matters  almost  exactly  as  they  are  now ; 
it  would  restore  love  and  private  preference  to  their 
ancient  authority  and  freedom,  at  the  utmost  it  would 
offer  some  greatly  qualified  advice,  and  so  released,  it 
would  turn  its  attention  to  those  flaws  and  gaps  in  our 
knowledge  that  at  present  render  these  regulations  no 
more  than  a  theory  and  a  dream. 

The  first  difBculty  these  theorists  ignore  is  this :  we 
are,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  not  a  bit  clear  what  points  to 
breed  for  and  what  points  to  breed  out. 

The  analogy  with  the  breeder  of  cattle  is  a  very  mis- 
leading one.  He  has  a  very  simple  ideal,  to  which  he 
directs  the  entire  pairing  of  his  stock.  He  breeds  for 
beef,  he  breeds  for  calves  and  milk,  he  breeds  for  a 
homogeneous  docile  herd.  Towards  that  ideal  he 
goes  simply  and  directly,  slaughtering  and  sparing, 
regardless  entirely  of  any  divergent  variation  that  may 
arise  beneath  his  control.  A  young  calf  with  an  in- 
cipient sense  of  humour,  with  a  bright  and  inquiring 
disposition,  with  a  gift  for  athleticism  or  a  quaintly- 
marked  hide,  has  no  sort  of  chance  with  him  at  all 
on  that  account.  He  can  throw  these  proffered  gifts 
of  nature  aside  without  hesitation.  Which  is  just 
what  our  theoretical  breeders  of  humanity  cannot  ven- 
ture to  do.  They  do  not  want  a  homogeneous  race  in 
the  future  at  all.  They  want  a  rich  interplay  of  free, 
strong,  and  varied  personalities,  and  that  alters  the 
nature  of  the  problem  absolutely. 

This  the  reader  may  dispute.  He  may  admit  the 
need  of  variety,  but  he  may  argue  that  this  variety 


The  Problem  of  the  Birth  Supply    39 

must  arise  from  a  basis  of  common  endowment.  He 
may  say  that  in  spite  of  the  compHcation  introduced 
by  the  consideration  that  a  divergent  variation  from 
one  ideal  may  be  a  divergence  towards  another  ideal, 
there  remain  certain  definable  points  that  could  be  bred 
for  universally,  for  all  that. 

What  are  they  ? 

There  will  be  little  doubt  he  will  answer  "Health." 
After  that  probably  he  may  say  "Beauty."  In  addi- 
tion the  reader  of  Mr.  Galton's  Hereditary  Genius  will 
probably  say,  "ability,"  "capacity,"  "genius,"  and  "en- 
ergy." The  reader  of  Doctor  Nordau  will  add  "san- 
ity." And  the  reader  of  Mr.  Archdall  Reid  will  round 
up  the  list  with  "immunity"  from  dipsomania  and  all 
contagious  diseases.  "Let  us  mark  our  human  be- 
ings," the  reader  of  that  way  of  thinking  will  suggest, 
"let  us  give  marks  for  'health,'  for  'ability,'  for  various 
sorts  of  specific  immunity  and  so  forth,  and  let  us  weed 
out  those  who  are  low  in  the  scale  and  multiply  those 
who  stand  high.  This  will  give  us  a  straight  way  to 
practical  amelioration,  and  the  difficulty  you  are  trying 
to  raise,"  he  urges,  "vanishes  forthwith." 

It  would,  if  these  points  were  really  points,  if 
"beauty,"  "capacity,"  "health,"  and  "sanity"  wxre  sim- 
ple and  uniform  things.  Unfortunately  they  are  not 
simple,  and  with  that  fact  a  host  of  difficulties  arise. 
Let  me  take  first  the  most  simple  and  obvious  case  of 
"beauty."  If  beauty  were  a  simple  thing,  it  would 
be  possible  to  arrange  human  beings  in  a  simple  scale, 
according  to  whether  they  had  more  or  less  of  this 


40  Mankind  in  the  Making 

simple  quality — just  as  one  can  do  in  the  case  of  what 
are  perhaps  really  simple  and  breedable  qualities — 
height  or  weight.  This  person,  one  might  say,  is  at 
eight  in  the  scale  of  beauty,  and  this  at  ten,  and  this 
at  twenty-seven.  But  it  complicates  the  case  beyond 
the  possibilities  of  such  a  scale  altogether  when  one 
begins  to  consider  that  there  are  varieties  and  types 
of  beauty  having  very  wide  divergences  and  made  up 
of  a  varying  number  of  elements  in  dissimilar  propor- 
tions. There  is,  for  example,  the  flaxen,  kindly  beauty 
of  the  Dutch  type,  the  dusky  Jewess,  the  tall,  fair 
Scandinavian,  the  dark  and  brilliant  south  Italian,  the 
noble  Roman,  the  dainty  Japanese — to  name  no  others. 
Each  of  these  types  has  its  peculiar  and  incommensur- 
able points,  and  within  the  limits  of  each  type  you  will 
find  a  hundred  divergent,  almost  unanalyzable,  styles, 
a  beauty  of  expression,  a  beauty  of  carriage,  a  beauty 
of  reflection,  a  beauty  of  repose,  arising  each  from  a 
quite  peculiar  proportion  of  parts  and  qualities,  and 
having  no  definable  relation  at  all  to  any  of  the  others. 
If  we  were  to  imagine  a  human  appearance  as  made 
up  of  certain  elements,  a,  b,  c,  d,  e,  f,  etc.,  then  we 
might  suppose  that  beauty  in  one  case  was  attained  by 
a  certain  high  development  of  a  and  f,  in  another  by 
a  certain  fineness  of  c  and  d,  in  another  by  a  delight- 
fully subtle  ratio  of  f  and  b. 

A,  b,  c,  d,  e,  F,  etc. 
a,  b,  c,  d,  e,  f,  etc. 
a,  b,  c,  d,  e,  F,  etc., 


The  Problem  of  the  Birth  Supply    41 

might  all,  for  example,  represent  different  types  of 
beauty.  Beauty  is  neither  a  simple  nor  a  constant 
thing;  it  is  attainable  through  a  variety  of  combina- 
tions, just  as  the  number  500  can  be  got  by  adding  or 
multiplying  together  a  great  variety  of  numerical 
arrangements.  Two  long  numerical  formulae  might 
both  simplify  out  to  500,  but  half  the  length  of  one 
truncated  and  put  end  on  to  the  truncated  end  of  the 
other,  might  give  a  very  different  result.  It  is  quite 
conceivable  that  you  might  select  and  wed  together  all 
the  most  beautiful  people  in  the  world  and  find  that 
in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  you  had  simply  produced  medi- 
ocre offspring  or  offspring  below  mediocrity.  Out  of 
the  remaining  tenth  a  great  majority  would  be  beauti- 
ful simply  by  "taking  after"  one  or  other  parent,  sim- 
ply through  the  predominance,  the  prepotency,  of  one 
parent  over  the  other,  a  thing  that  might  have  hap- 
pened equally  well  if  the  other  parent  was  plain.  The 
first  sort  of  beauty  (in  my  three  formulae)  wedding 
the  third  sort  of  beauty,  might  simply  result  in  a  rather 
ugly  excess  of  F,  and  again  the  first  sort  might  result 
from  a  combination  of 

a,  b,  c,  d,  e,  F,  etc., 

and 

A,h,Q.,  d,  e,  f,  etc., 

neither  of  which  arrangements,  very  conceivably,  may 
be  beautiful  at  all  when  it  is  taken  alone.  In  this 
respect,  at  any  rate,  personal  value  and  reproductive 
value  may  be  two  entirely  different  things. 


42  Mmikind  in  the  Making 

Now  what  the  elements  of  personal  aspect  really  are, 
what  these  elements  a,  b,  c,  d,  e,  f,  etc.,  may  be,  we  do 
not  know  with  any  sort  of  exactness.  Possibly  height, 
weight,  presence  of  dark  pigment  in  the  hair,  white- 
ness of  skin,  presence  of  hair  upon  the  body,  are  sim- 
ple elements  in  inheritance  that  will  follow  Galton's 
arithmetical  treatment  of  heredity  with  some  exact- 
ness. But  we  are  not  even  sure  of  that.  The  height 
of  one  particular  person  may  be  due  to  an  exceptional 
length  of  leg  and  neck,  of  another  to  an  abnormal 
length  of  the  vertebral  bodies  of  the  backbone;  the 
former  may  have  a  rather  less  than  ordinary  backbone, 
the  latter  a  stunted  type  of  limb,  and  an  intermarriage 
may  just  as  conceivably  (so  far  as  our  present  knowl- 
edge goes)  give  the  backbone  of  the  first  and  the  legs 
of  the  second  as  it  may  a  very  tall  person. 

The  fact  is  that  in  this  matter  of  beauty  and  breed- 
ing for  beauty  we  are  groping  in  a  corner  where  sci- 
ence has  not  been  established.  No  doubt  the  corner 
is  marked  out  as  a  part  of  the  "sphere  of  influence"  of 
anthropology,  but  there  is  not  the  slightest  indication 
of  an  effective  occupation  among  these  raiding  consid- 
erations and  uncertain  facts.  Until  anthropology  pro- 
duces her  Daltons  and  Davys  we  must  fumble  in  this 
corner,  just  as  the  old  alchemists  fumbled  for  centuries 
before  the  dawn  of  chemistry.  Our  utmost  practice 
here  must  be  empirical.  We  do  not  know  the  elements 
of  what  we  have,  the  human  characteristics  we  are 
working  upon  to  get  that  end.  The  sentimentalized 
affinities  of  young  persons  in  their  spring  are  just  as 


The  Problem  of  the  Birth  Sttpply    43 

likely  to  result  in  the  improvement  of  the  race  in  this 
respect  as  the  whole  science  of  anthropology  in  its  pres- 
ent state  of  evolution. 

I  have  suggested  that  "beauty"  is  a  term  applied  to 
a  miscellany  of  synthetic  results  compounded  of  diverse 
elements  in  diverse  proportions ;  and  I  have  suggested 
that  one  can  no  more  generalize  about  it  in  relation 
to  inheritance  with  any  hope  of  effective  application 
than  one  can  generalize  about,  say,  'lumpy  substances" 
in  relation  to  chemical  combination.  By  reasoning 
upon  quite  parallel  lines  nearly  every  characteristic  with 
which  Mr.  Galton  deals  in  his  interesting  and  sug- 
gestive but  quite  inconclusive  works,  can  be  demon- 
strated to  consist  in  a  similar  miscellany.  He  speaks 
of  "eminence,"  of  "success,"  of  "ability,"  of  "zeal,"  and 
"energ)',"  for  example,  and  except  for  the  last  two 
items  I  would  submit  that  these  qualities,  though  of 
enormous  personal  value,  are  of  no  practical  value 
in  inheritance  whatever;  that  to  wed  "ability"  to 
"ability"  may  breed  something  less  than  mediocrity, 
and  that  "ability"  is  just  as  likely  or  just  as  un- 
likely to  be  prepotent  and  to  assert  itself  in  descent 
with  the  most  casually  selected  partner  as  it  is 
with  one  picked  with  all  the  knowledge,  or  rather 
pseudo-knowledge,  anthropology  in  its  present  state 
can  give  us. 

When,  however,  we  turn  to  "zeal"  or  "energ)^"  or 
"go,"  we  do  seem  to  be  dealing  with  a  simpler  and 
more  transmissible  thing.  Let  us  assume  that  in  this 
matter  there  is  a  wide  range  of  difference  that  may  be 


44  Mankind  in  the  Making 

arranged  in  a  direct  and  simple  scale  in  quantitative 
relation  to  the  gross  output  of  action  of  different 
human  beings.  One  passes  from  the  incessant  em- 
ployment of  such  a  being  as  Gladstone  at  the  one  ex- 
treme, a  loquacious  torrent  of  interests  and  achieve- 
ments, to  the  extreme  of  phlegmatic  lethargy  on  the 
other.  Call  the  former  a  high  energetic  and  the  latter 
low.  Quite  possibly  it  might  be  found  that  we  could 
breed  "high  energetics."  But  before  we  did  so  we 
should  have  to  consider  very  gravely  that  the  "go"  and 
"energy"  of  a  man  have  no  ascertainable  relation  to 
many  other  extremely  important  considerations.  Your 
energetic  person  may  be  moral  or  immoral,  an  unquali- 
fied egotist  or  as  public  spirited  as  an  ant,  sane,  or  a 
raving  lunatic.  Your  phlegmatic  person  may  ripen 
resolves  and  bring  out  truths,  with  the  incomparable 
clearness  of  a  long-exposed,  slowly  developed,  slowly 
printed  photograph.  A  man  who  would  exchange  the 
slow  gigantic  toil  of  that  sluggish  and  deliberate  per- 
son, Charles  Darwin,  for  the  tumultuous  inconsequence 
and  (as  some  people  think  it)  the  net  mischief  of  a 
Gladstone,  would  no  doubt  be  prepared  to  substitute  a 
Catherine-wheel  in  active  eruption  for  the  watch  of 
less  adventurous  men.  But  before  we  could  induce 
the  community  as  a  whole  to  make  a  similar  exchange, 
he  would  have  to  carry  on  a  prolonged  and  vigorous 
propaganda. 

For  my  own  part — and  I  write  as  an  ignorant  man 
in  a  realm  where  ignorance  prevails — I  am  inclined 
to  doubt  the  simplicity  and  homogeneity  even  of  this 


The  Problem  of  the  Birth  Supply    45 

quality  of  "energy"  or  *'go."  A  person  without  re- 
straint, without  intellectual  conscience,  without  critical 
faculty,  may  write  and  jabber  and  go  to  and  fro  and 
be  here  and  there,  simply  because  every  impulse  is 
obeyed  so  soon  as  it  arises.  Another  person  may  be 
built  upon  an  altogether  larger  scale  of  energy,  but 
may  be  deliberate,  concentrated,  and  fastidious,  bent 
rather  upon  truth  and  permanence  than  upon  any  im- 
mediate quantitative  result,  and  may  appear  to  any 
one  but  an  extremely  penetrating  critic,  as  inferior  in 
energy  to  the  former.  So  far  as  our  knowledge  goes 
at  present,  what  is  popularly  known  as  "energy"  or 
"go"  is  just  as  likely  to  be  a  certain  net  preponderance 
of  a  varied  miscellany  of  impulsive  qualities  over  a 
varied  miscellany  of  restraints  and  inhibitions,  as  it  is 
to  prove  a  simple  indivisible  quality  transmissible  in- 
tact. We  are  so  profoundly  ignorant  in  these  matters, 
so  far  from  anything  worthy  of  the  name  of  science, 
that  one  view  is  just  as  permissible  and  just  as  un- 
trustworthy as  the  other. 

Even  the  qualification  of  "health"  is  not  sufficient. 
A  thoughtless  person  may  say  with  the  most  invincible 
air,  "Parents  should,  at  any  rate,  be  healthy,"  but  that 
alone  is  only  a  misleading  vague  formula  for  good 
intentions.  In  the  first  place,  there  is  every  reason  to 
believe  that  transitory  ill-health  in  the  parent  is  of  no 
consequence  at  all  to  the  offspring.  Neither  does  ac- 
quired constitutional  ill-health  necessarily  transmit  to 
a  child ;  it  may  or  it  may  not  react  upon  the  child's 
nutrition  and  training,  but  that  is  a  question  to  con- 


46  Mankind  in  the  Making 

sider  later.  It  is  quite  conceivable,  it  is  highly  proba- 
ble, that  there  are  hereditary  forms  of  ill-health,  and 
that  they  may  be  eliminated  from  the  human  lot  by  dis- 
creet and  restrained  pairing,  but  what  they  are  and 
what  are  the  specific  conditions  of  their  control  we  do 
not  know.  And  furthermore,  we  are  scarcely  more 
certain  that  the  condition  of  "perfect  health"  in  one 
human  being  is  the  same  as  the  similarly  named  con- 
dition in  another,  than  we  are  that  the  beauty  of  one 
type  is  made  up  of  the  same  essential  elements  as  the 
beauty  of  another.  Health  is  a  balance,  a  balance  of 
blood  against  nerve,  of  digestion  against  secretion,  of 
heart  against  brain.  A  heart  of  perfect  health  and 
vigour  put  into  the  body  of  a  perfectly  healthy  man 
who  is  built  upon  a  slighter  scale  than  that  heart,  will 
swiftly  disorganize  the  entire  fabric,  and  burst  its  way 
to  a  haemorrhage  in  lung  perhaps,  or  brain,  or  wher- 
ever the  slightest  relative  weakening  permits.  The 
"perfect"  health  of  a  negro  may  be  a  quite  dissimilar 
system  of  reactions  to  the  "perfect  health"  of  a  vigor- 
ous white ;  you  may  blend  them  only  to  create  an  ailing 
mass  of  physiological  discords.  "Health,"  just  as 
much  as  these  other  things,  is,  for  this  purpose  of  mar- 
riage diplomas  and  the  like,  a  vague,  unserviceable 
synthetic  quality.  It  serves  each  one  of  us  for  our 
private  and  conversational  needs,  but  in  this  question 
it  is  not  hard  enough  and  sharp  enough  for  the  thing 
we  want  it  to  do.  Brought  to  the  service  of  this  fine 
and  complicated  issue  it  breaks  down  altogether.  We 
do  not  know  enough.     We  have  not  analyzed  enough 


The  Problem  of  the  Birth  Supply    47 

nor    penetrated    enough.     There    is    no    science    yet, 
worthy  of  the  name,  in  any  of  these  things.^ 

These  considerations  should  at  least  suffice  to  de- 
monstrate the  entire  impracticability  of  Mr,  Galton's 
two  suggestions.  Moreover,  this  idea  of  picking  out 
high-scale  individuals  in  any  particular  quality  or 
group  of  qualities  and  breeding  them,  is  not  the  way 
of  nature  at  all.  Nature  is  not  a  breeder;  she  is  a 
reckless  coupler  and — she  slays.  It  was  a  popular  mis- 
conception of  the  theory  of  the  Survival  of  the  Fittest, 
a  misconception  Lord  Salisbury  was  at  great  pains  to 
display  to  the  British  Association  in  1894,  that  the 
average  of  a  species  in  any  respect  is  raised  by  the 
selective  inter-breeding  of  the  individuals  above  the 
average.  Lord  Salisbury  was  no  doubt  misled,  as 
most  people  who  share  his  mistake  have  been  mis- 
led, by  the  grammatical  error  of  employing  the  Sur- 
vival of  the  Fittest  for  the  Survival  of  the  Fitter,  in 
order  to  escape  a  scarcely  ambiguous  ambiguity.  But 
the  use  of  the  word  "Survival"  should  have  sufficed  to 
indicate  that  the  real  point  of  application  of  the  force 
by  which  Nature  modifies  species  and  raises  the  aver- 
age in  any  quality,  lies  not  in  selective  breeding,  but 
in  the  disproportionately  numerous  deaths  of  the  indi- 
viduals below  the  average.     And  even  the  methods  of 

1  This  idea  of  attempting  to  define  the  elements  in  inheritance,  al- 
though it  is  absent  from  much  contemporar)'  discussion,  was  pretty 
evidentiV  in  mind  in  the  very  striking  researches  of  the  Abbe  Mendel 
to  which  Mr.  Bateson — with  a  certain  intemperance  of  manner — has 
recently  called  attention.  (Bateson,  MendeVs  Principles  of  Heredity, 
Cambridge  University  Press,  1902.) 


48  Mankind  in  the  Making 

the  breeder  of  cattle,  if  they  are  to  produce  a  perma- 
nent alteration  in  the  species  of  cattle,  must  consist 
not  only  in  breeding  the  desirable  but  in  either  killing 
the  undesirable,  or  at  least — what  is  the  quintessence, 
the  inner  reality  of  death — in  preventing  them  from 
breeding. 

The  general  trend  of  thought  in  Mrs.  Martin's 
Humanitarian  was  certainly  more  in  accordance  with 
this  reading  of  biological  science  than  were  Mr.  Gal- 
ton's  proposals.  There  was  a  much  greater  insistence 
upon  the  need  of  "elimination,"  upon  the  evil  of  the 
"Rapid  Multiplication  of  the  Unfit,"  a  word  that,  how- 
ever, was  never  defined  and,  I  believe,  really  did  not 
mean  anything  in  particular  in  this  connection.  And 
directly  one  does  attempt  to  define  it,  directly  one  sits 
down  in  a  businesslike  way  to  apply  the  method  of 
elimination  instead  of  the  method  of  selection,  one  is 
immediately  confronted  by  almost  as  complex  an  en- 
tanglement of  difficulties  in  defining  points  to  breed 
out  as  one  is  by  defining  points  to  breed  for.  Almost, 
I  say,  but  not  quite.  For  here  there  does  seem  to  be, 
if  not  certainties,  at  least  a  few  plausible  probabilities 
that  a  vigorous  and  systematic  criticism  may  perhaps 
hammer  into  generalizations  of  sufficient  certainty  to 
go  upon. 

I  believe  that  long  before  humanity  has  hammered 
out  the  question  of  what  is  pre-eminently  desirable  in 
inheritance,  a  certain  number  of  things  will  have  been 
isolated  and  defined  as  pre-eminently  undesirable.  But 
before  these  are  considered,  let  us  sweep  out  of  our 


The  Problem  of  the  Birth  Supply    49 

present  regard  a  number  of  cruel  and  mischievous 
ideas  that  are  altogether  too  ascendant  at  the  present 
time. 

Anthropology  has  been  compared  to  a  great  region, 
marked  out  indeed  as  within  the  sphere  of  influence 
of  science,  but  unsettled  and  for  the  most  part  unsub- 
dued. Like  all  such  hinterland  sciences,  it  is  a  happy 
hunting-ground  for  adventurers.  Just  as  in  the  early 
days  of  British  Somaliland,  rascals  would  descend 
from  nowhere  in  particular  upon  unfortunate  villages, 
levy  taxes  and  administer  atrocity  in  the  name  of  the 
Empire,  and  even,  I  am  told,  outface  for  a  time  the 
modest  heralds  of  the  government,  so  in  this  depart- 
ment of  anthropology  the  public  mind  suffers  from  the 
imposition  of  theories  and  assertions  claiming  to  be 
"scientific,"  which  have  no  more  relation  to  that  or- 
ganized system  of  criticism  which  is  science,  than  a 
brigand  at  large  on  a  mountain  has  to  the  machinery 
of  law  and  police,  by  which  finally  he  will  be  hanged. 
Among  such  raiding  theorists  none  at  present  are  in 
quite  such  urgent  need  of  polemical  suppression  as 
those  who  would  persuade  the  heedless  general  reader 
that  every  social  failure  is  necessarily  a  "degenerate," 
and  who  claim  boldly  that  they  can  trace  a  distinctly 
evil  and  mischievous  strain  in  that  unfortunate  mis- 
cellany which  constitutes  "the  criminal  class."  They 
invoke  the  name  of  "science"  with  just  as  much  confi- 
dence and  just  as  much  claim  as  the  early  Victorian 
phrenologists.  They  speak  and  write  with  ineffable 
profundity  about  the  "criminal"  ear,  the  "criminal" 


50  Mankind  in  the  Making 

thumb,  the  ''criminal"  glance.  They  gain  access  to 
gaols  and  pester  unfortunate  prisoners  with  callipers 
and  cameras,  and  quite  unforgivable  prying  into  per- 
sonal and  private  matters,  and  they  hold  out  great 
hopes  that  by  these  expedients  they  will  evolve  at  last 
a  "scientific"  revival  of  the  Kaffir's  witch-smelling. 
We  shall  catch  our  criminals  by  anthropometry  ere 
ever  a  criminal  thought  has  entered  their  brains.  "Pre- 
vention is  better  than  cure."  These  mattoid  scientists 
make  a  direct  and  disastrous  attack  upon  the  latent  self- 
respect  of  criminals.  And  not  only  upon  that  tender 
plant,  but  also  upon  the  springs  of  human  charity 
towards  the  criminal  class.  For  the  complex  and 
varied  chapter  of  accidents  that  carries  men  into  that 
net  of  precautions,  expedients,  prohibitions,  and  vin- 
dictive reprisals,  the  net  of  the  law,  they  would  have 
us  believe  there  is  a  fatal  necessity  inherent  in  their 
being.  Criminals  are  born,  not  made,  they  allege. 
No  longer  are  we  to  say,  "There,  but  for  the  grace  of 
God,  go  I" — when  the  convict  tramps  past  us — but, 
"There  goes  another  sort  of  animal  that  is  differentiat- 
ing from  my  species  and  which  I  would  gladly  see  ex- 
terminated." 

Now  every  man  who  has  searched  his  heart  knows 
that  this  formulation  of  "criminality"  as  a  specific 
quality  is  a  stupidity,  he  knows  himself  to  be  a  crim- 
inal, just  as  most  men  know  themselves  to  be  sexually 
rogues.  No  man  is  born  with  an  instinctive  respect 
for  the  rights  of  any  property  but  his  own,  and  few 
with  a  passion  for  monogamy.     No  man  who  is  not 


The  Problem  of  the  Birth  Supply    5 1 

an  outrageously  vain  and  foolish  creature  but  will  con- 
fess to  himself  that  but  for  advantages  and  accidents, 
but  for  a  chance  hesitation  or  a  lucky  timidity,  he,  too, 
had  been  there,  under  the  ridiculous  callipers  of  witless 
anthropology.  A  criminal  is  no  doubt  of  less  personal 
value  to  the  community  than  a  law-abiding  citizen  of 
the  same  general  calibre,  but  it  does  not  follow  for  one 
moment  that  he  is  of  less  value  as  a  parent.  His  per- 
sonal disaster  may  be  due  to  the  possession  of  a  bold 
and  enterprising  character,  of  a  degree  of  pride  and 
energy  above  the  needs  of  the  position  his  social  sur- 
roundings have  forced  upon  him.  Another  citizen 
may  have  all  this  man's  desires  and  impulses,  checked 
and  sterilized  by  a  lack  of  nervous  energy,  by  an  abject 
fear  of  the  policeman  and  of  the  consequences  of  the 
disapproval  of  his  more  prosperous  fellow-citizens.  I 
will  frankly  confess  that  for  my  own  part  I  prefer  the 
wicked  to  the  mean,  and  that  I  would  rather  trust  the 
future  to  the  former  strain  than  to  the  latter.  What- 
ever preference  the  reader  may  entertain,  there  remains 
this  unmistakable  objection  to  its  application  to  breed- 
ing, that  "criminality"  is  not  a  specific  simple  quality, 
but  a  complex  that  may  interfuse  with  other  complexes 
to  give  quite  incalculable  results  in  the  offspring  it 
produces.  So  that  here  again,  on  the  negative  side, 
we  find  a  general  expression  unserviceable   for  our 


use. 


*  No  doubt  the  home  of  the  criminal  and  social  failure  is  generally 
disastrous  to  the  children  born  into  it.  That  is  a  question  that  will  be 
fully  dealt  with  in  a  subsequent  paper,  and  I  note  it  here  only  to  point 


52  Mankind  in  the  Making 

But  it  will  be  alleged  that  although  criminality  as  a 
whole  means  nothing  definite  enough  for  our  purpose, 
there  can  be  picked  out  and  defined  certain  criminal 
(or  at  any  rate  disastrous)  tendencies  that  are  simple, 
specific  and  transmissible.  Those  who  have  read  Mr. 
Archdall  Reid's  Alcoholism,  for  example,  will  know 
that  he  deals  constantly  with  what  is  called  the  "drink 
craving"  as  if  it  were  such  a  specific  simple  inheritance. 
He  makes  a  very  strong  case  for  this  belief,  but  strong 
as  it  is,  I  do  not  think  it  is  going  to  stand  the  pressure 
of  a  rigorously  critical  examination.  He  points  out 
that  races  which  have  been  in  possession  of  alcoholic 
drinks  the  longest  are  the  least  drunken,  and  this  he 
ascribes  to  the  "elimination"  of  all  those  whose  "drink 
craving"  is  too  strong  for  them.  Nations  unused  to 
alcoholic  drink  are  most  terribly  ravaged  at  its  first 
coming  to  them,  may  even  be  destroyed  by  it,  in  pre- 
cisely the  same  way  that  new  diseases  coming  to  peo- 
ples unused  to  them  are  far  more  malignant  than 
among  peoples  who  have  suffered  from  them  genera- 
tion after  generation.  Such  instances  as  the  terrible 
ravages  of  measles  in  Polynesia  and  the  ruin  worked 
by  fire-water  among  the  Red  Indians,  he  gives  in  great 
abundance.  He  infers  from  this.that  interference  with 
the  sale  of  drink  to  a  people  may  in  the  long  run  do 

out  that  it  is  outside  our  present  discussion,  which  is  concerned  not 
with  the  fate  of  children  bom  into  the  world,  but  with  the  prior  question 
whether  we  may  hope  to  improve  the  quality  of  the  average  birth  by 
encouraging  some  sorts  of  people  to  have  children  and  discouraging 
or  forbidding  others.  It  is  of  vital  importance  to  keep  these  two  ques- 
tions distinct,  if  we  are  to  get  at  last  to  a  basis  for  effective  action. 


The  Problem  of  the  Birth  Supply    53 

more  harm  than  good,  by  preserving  those  who  would 
otherwise  be  eliminated,  permitting  them  to  multiply 
and  so,  generation  by  generation,  lowering  the  resist- 
ing power  of  the  race.  And  he  proposes  to  divert  tem- 
perance legislation  from  the  persecution  of  drink  mak- 
ers and  sellers,  to  such  remedies  as  the  punishment  of 
declared  and  indisputable  drunkards  if  they  incur 
parentage,  and  the  extension  of  the  grounds  of  divorce 
to  include  this  ugly  and  disastrous  habit. 

I  am  not  averse  to  Mr.  Reid's  remedies  because  I 
think  of  the  wife  and  the  home,  but  I  would  not  go 
so  far  with  him  as  to  consider  this  "drink  craving" 
specific  and  simple,  and  I  retain  an  open  mind  about 
the  sale  of  drink.  He  has  not  convinced  me  that  there 
is  an  inherited  "drink  craving"  any  more  than  there  is 
an  inherited  tea  craving  or  an  inherited  morphia  crav- 
ing. 

In  the  first  place  I  would  propound  a  certain  view 
of  the  general  question  of  habits.  My  own  private 
observations  in  psychology  incline  me  to  believe  that 
people  vary  very  much  in  their  power  of  acquiring 
habits  and  in  the  strength  and  fixity  of  the  habits  they 
acquire.  My  most  immediate  subject  of  psychological 
study,  for  example,  is  a  man  of  untrustworthy  mem- 
ory who  is  nearly  incapable  of  a  really  deep-rooted 
habit.  Nothing  is  automatic  with  him.  He  crams 
and  forgets  languages  with  an  equal  ease,  gives  up 
smoking  after  fifteen  years  of  constant  practice ;  shaves 
with  a  conscious  effort  every  morning  and  is  capable 
of  forgetting  to  do  so  if  intent  upon  anything  else.    He 


54  Mankind  in  the  Making 

is  generally  self-indulgent,  capable  of  keen  enjoyment 
and  quite  capable  of  intemperance,  but  he  has  no  in- 
variable delights  and  no  besetting  sin.  Such  a  man 
will  not  become  an  habitual  drunkard ;  he  will  not  be- 
come anything  "habitual."  But  with  another  type  of 
man  habit  is  indeed  second  nature.  Instead  of  the  per- 
manent fluidity  of  my  particular  case,  such  people  are 
continually  tending  to  solidify  and  harden.  Their 
memories  set,  their  opinions  set,  their  methods  of  ex- 
pression set,  their  delights  recur  and  recur,  they  con- 
vert initiative  into  mechanical  habit  day  by  day.  Let 
them  taste  any  pleasure  and  each  time  they  taste  it  they 
deepen  a  need.  At  last  their  habits  become  imperative 
needs.  With  such  a  disposition,  external  circum- 
stances and  suggestions,  I  venture  to  believe,  may 
make  a  man  either  into  an  habitual  church-goer  or  an 
habitual  drunkard,  an  habitual  toiler  or  an  habitual 
rake.  A  self-indulgent  rather  unsocial  habit-forming 
man  may  very  easily  become  what  is  called  a  dipso- 
maniac, no  doubt,  but  that  is  not  the  same  thing  as  an 
inherited  specific  craving.  With  drink  inaccessible 
and  other  vices  offering  his  lapse  may  take  another 
line.  An  aggressive,  proud  and  greatly  mortified  man 
may  fall  upon  the  same  courses.  An  unwary  youth  of 
the  plastic  type  may  be  taken  unawares  and  pass  from 
free  indulgence  to  excess  before  he  perceives  that  a 
habit  is  taking  hold  of  him. 

I  believe  that  many  causes  and  many  temperaments 
go  to  the  making  of  drunkards.  I  have  read  a  story 
by  the  late  Sir  Walter  Besant,  in  which  he  presents  the 


The  Problem  of  the  Birth  Supply    55 

specific  craving  as  if  it  were  a  specific  magic  curse. 
The  story  was  supposed  to  be  morally  edifying,  but  I 
can  imagine  this  ugly  superstition  of  the  "hereditary 
craving  ' — it  is  really  nothing  more — acting  with  ab- 
solutely paralyzing  effect  upon  some  credulous  young- 
ster struggling  in  the  grip  of  a  developing  habit.  "It's 
no  good  trying," — that  quite  infernal  phrase! 

It  may  be  urged  that  this  attempt  to  whittle  down 
the  "inherited  craving"  to  a  habit  does  not  meet  Mr. 
Reid's  argument  from  the  gradual  increase  of  resisting 
power  in  races  subjected  to  alcoholic  temptation,  an 
increase  due  to  the  elimination  of  all  the  more  suscepti- 
ble individuals.  There  can  be  no  denying  that  those 
nations  that  have  had  fermented  drinks  longest  are  the 
soberest,  but  that,  after  all,  may  be  only  one  aspect  of 
much  more  extensive  operations.  The  nations  that 
have  had  fermented  drinks  the  longest  are  also  those 
that  have  been  civilized  the  longest.  The  passage  of 
a  people  from  a  condition  of  agricultural  dispersal  to 
a  more  organized  civilization  means  a  very  extreme 
change  in  the  conditions  of  survival,  of  which  the  in- 
creasing intensity  of  temptation  to  alcoholic  excess  is 
only  one  aspect.  Gluttony,  for  example,  becomes  a 
much  more  possible  habit,  and  many  other  vices  tender 
death  for  the  first  time  to  the  men  who  are  gathering 
in  and  about  towns.  The  city  demands  more  persist- 
ent, more  intellectualized  and  less  intense  physical  de- 
sires than  the  countryside.  Moral  qualities  that  were 
a  disadvantage  in  the  dispersed  stage  become  advan- 
tageous in  the  city,  and  conversely.     Rugged  inde- 


56  Mankind  in  the  Making 

pendence  ceases  to  be  helpful,  and  an  intelligent  turn 
for  give  and  take,  for  collaboration  and  bargaining, 
makes  increasingly  for  survival.  Moreover,  there 
grows  very  slowly  an  indefinable  fabric  of  traditional 
home  training  in  restraint  that  is  very  hard  to  separate 
in  analysis  from  mental  heredity.  People  who  have 
dwelt  for  many  generations  in  towns  are  not  only  more 
temperate  and  less  explosive  in  the  grosser  indulgences, 
but  more  urbane  altogether.  The  drunken  people  are 
also  the  "uncivil"  peoples  and  the  individualistic  peo- 
ples. The  great  prevalence  of  drunkenness  among  the 
upper  classes  two  centuries  ago  can  hardly  have  been 
bred  out  in  the  intervening  six  or  seven  generations, 
and  it  is  also  a  difficult  fact  for  Mr.  Reid  that  drunken- 
ness has  increased  in  France.  In  most  of  the  cases 
cited  by  Mr.  Reid  a  complex  of  operating  forces  could 
be  stated  in  which  the  appearance  of  fermented  liquors 
is  only  one  factor,  and  a  tangle  of  consequent  changes 
in  which  a  gradually  increasing  insensibility  to  the 
charms  of  intoxication  was  only  one  thread.  Drunk- 
enness has  no  doubt  played  a  large  part  in  eliminating 
certain  types  of  people  from  the  world,  but  that  it  spe- 
cifically eliminates  one  specific  definable  type  is  an  alto- 
gether different  matter. 

Even  if  we  admit  Mr.  Reid's  conception,  this  by  no 
means  solves  the  problem.  It  is  quite  conceivable  that 
the  world  could  purchase  certain  sorts  of  immunity  too 
dearly.  If  it  was  a  common  thing  to  adorn  the  para- 
pets of  houses  in  towns  with  piles  of  loose  bricks,  it  is 
certain  that  a  large  number  of  persons  not  immune  to 


The  Problem  of  the  Birth  Supply    57 

fracture  of  the  skull  by  falling  bricks  would  be  elim- 
inated. A  time  would  no  doubt  come  when  those  with 
a  specific  liability  to  skull  fracture  would  all  be  elimin- 
ated, and  the  human  cranium  would  have  developed  a 
practical  immunity  to  damage  from  all  sorts  of  falling 
substances.  .  .  .  But  there  would  have  been  far 
more  extensive  suppressions  than  would  appear  in  the 
letter  of  the  agreement. 

This  no  doubt  is  a  caricature  of  the  case,  but  it  will 
serve  to  illustrate  my  contention  that  until  we  possess 
a  far  more  subtle  and  thorough  analysis  of  the  drunk- 
ard's physique  and  mind — if  it  really  is  a  distinctive 
type  of  mind  and  physique — than  we  have  at  present, 
we  have  no  justification  whatever  in  artificial  interven- 
tion to  increase  whatever  eliminatory  process  may  at 
present  be  going  on  in  this  respect.  Even  if  there  is 
such  a  specific  weakness,  it  is  possible  it  has  a  period  of 
maximum  intensity,  and  if  that  should  be  only  a  brief 
phase  in  development — let  us  say  at  adolescence — it 
might  turn  out  to  be  much  more  to  the  advantage  of 
humanity  to  contrive  protective  legislation  over  the 
dangerous  years.  ...  I  argue  to  establish  no  view 
in  these  matters  beyond  a  view  that  at  present  we  know 
very  little. 

Not  only  do  ignorance  and  doubt  bar  our  way  to 
anything  more  than  a  pious  wish  to  eliminate  criminal- 
ity and  drunkenness  in  a  systematic  manner,  but  even 
the  popular  belief  in  ruthless  suppression  whenever 
there  is  "madness  in  the  family"  will  not  stand  an  in- 
telligent scrutiny.     The  man  in  the  street  thinks  mad- 


58  Mankind  in  the  Making 

ness  is  a  fixed  and  definite  thing,  as  distinct  from  sanity 
as  black  is  from  white.  He  is  always  exasperated  at 
the  hesitation  of  doctors  when  in  a  judicial  capacity 
he  demands:  "Is  this  man  mad  or  isn't  he?"  But  a 
very  little  reading  of  alienists  will  dissolve  this  clear 
assurance.  Here  again  it  seems  possible  that  we  have 
a  number  of  states  that  we  are  led  to  believe  are  simple 
because  they  are  gathered  together  under  the  generic 
word  "madness,"  but  which  may  represent  a  consider- 
able variety  of  induced  and  curable  and  non-inherit- 
able states  on  the  one  hand  and  of  innate  and  incurable 
and  heritable  mental  disproportions  on  the  other. 

The  less  gifted  portion  of  the  educated  public  was 
greatly  delighted  some  years  ago  by  a  work  by  Dr. 
Nordau  called  Degeneration,  in  which  a  great  number 
of  abnormal  people  were  studied  in  a  pseudo-scientific 
manner  and  shown  to  be  abnormal  beyond  any  possi- 
bility of  dispute.  Mostly  the  samples  selected  were 
men  of  exceptional  artistic  and  literary  power.  The 
book  was  pretentious  and  inconsistent — the  late  Lord 
Tennyson  was  quoted,  I  remember,  as  a  typically 
"sane"  poet  in  spite  of  the  scope  afforded  by  his  melo- 
dramatic personal  appearance  and  his  morbid  passion 
for  seclusion — but  it  did  at  least  serve  to  show  that  if 
we  cannot  call  a  man  stupid  we  may  almost  invariably 
call  him  mad  with  some  show  of  reason.  The  public 
read  the  book  for  the  sake  of  its  abuse,  applied  the  in- 
tended conclusion  to  every  success  that  awakened  its 
envy,  and  failed  altogether  to  see  how  absolutely  the 
definition  of  madness  was  destroyed.     But  if  madness 


The  Problem  of  the  Birth  Supply    59 

is  indeed  simply  genius  out  of  hand  and  genius  only 
madness  under  adequate  control;  if  imagination  is  a 
snare  only  to  the  unreasonable  and  a  disordered  mind 
only  an  excess  of  intellectual  enterprise — and  really 
none  of  these  things  can  be  positively  disproved — then 
just  as  reasonable  as  the  idea  of  suppressing  the  repro- 
duction of  madness,  is  the  idea  of  breeding  it !  Let  us 
take  all  these  dull,  stagnant,  respectable  people,  one 
might  say,  who  do  nothing  but  conform  to  whatever 
rule  is  established  about  them  and  obstruct  whatever 
change  is  proposed  to  them,  whose  chief  quality  is  a 
sheer  incapacity  to  imagine  anything  beyond  their  petty 
experiences,  and  let  us  tell  them  plainly,  "It  is  time  a 
lunatic  married  into  your  family."  Let  no  one  run 
away  from  this  with  the  statement  that  I  propose  such 
a  thing  should  be  done,  but  it  is,  at  any  rate  in  the  pres- 
ent state  of  our  knowledge,  as  reasonable  a  proposal  to 
make  as  its  quite  frequently  reiterated  converse. 

If  in  any  case  we  are  in  a  position  to  intervene  and 
definitely  forbid  increase,  it  is  in  the  case  of  certain 
specific  diseases,  which  I  am  told  are  painful  and  dis- 
astrous and  inevitably  transmitted  to  the  offspring  of 
the  person  suffering  from  these  diseases.  If  there  are 
such  diseases — and  that  is  a  question  the  medical  pro- 
fession should  be  able  to  decide — it  is  evident  that  to 
incur  parentage  while  one  suffers  from  one  of  them 
or  to  transmit  them  in  any  avoidable  way,  is  a  cruel, 
disastrous  and  abominable  act.  If  such  a  thing  is  pos- 
sible it  seems  to  me  that  in  view  of  the  guiding  princi- 
ple laid  down  in  these  papers  it  might  well  be  put  at 


6o  Mankind  in  the  Making 

the  nadir  of  crime,  and  I  doubt  if  any  step  the  State 
might  take  to  deter  and  punish  the  offender,  short  of 
torture,  would  meet  with  opposition  from  sane  and 
reasonable  men.  For  my  own  part  I  am  inclined  at 
times  almost  to  doubt  if  there  are  such  diseases.  If 
there  are,  the  remedy  is  so  simple  and  obvious,  that  I 
cannot  but  blame  the  medical  profession  for  very  dis- 
creditable silences.  I  am  no  believer  in  the  final  wis- 
dom of  the  mass  of  mankind,  but  I  do  believe  enough 
in  the  sanity  of  the  English-speaking  peoples  to  be  cer- 
tain that  any  clear  statement  and  instruction  they  re- 
ceived from  the  medical  profession,  as  a  whole,  in  these 
matters,  would  be  faithfully  observed.  In  the  face  of 
the  collective  silence  of  this  great  body  of  specialists, 
there  is  nothing  for  it  but  to  doubt  such  diseases  exist. 
Such  a  systematic  suppression  of  a  specific  disease 
or  so  is  really  the  utmost  that  could  be  done  with  any 
confidence  at  present,  so  far  as  the  State  and  collective 
action  go.^  Until  great  advances  are  made  in  anthro- 
pology— and  at  present  there  are  neither  men  nor  en- 
dowments to  justify  the  hope  that  any  such  advances 
will  soon  be  made — that  is  as  much  as  can  be  done 

>  Since  the  above  was  written,  a  correspondent  in  Honolulu  has  called 
my  attention  to  a  short  but  most  suggestive  essay  by  Doctor  Harry 
Campbell  in  the  Lancet,  1898,  ii.,  p.  678.  He  uses,  of  course,  the  common 
medical  euphemism  of  "should  not  marry"  for  "should  not  procreate," 
and  he  gives  the  follo^-ing  as  a  list  of  "bars  to  marriage":  pulmonary 
consumption,  organic  heart  disease,  epilepsy,  insanity,  diabetes,  chronic 
Bright's  disease,  and  rheumatic  fever.  I  wish  I  had  sufficient  medical 
knowledge  to  analyze  that  proposal.  He  mentions  inherited  defective 
eyesight  and  hearing  also,  and  the  "neurotic"  quality,  with  which  I 
have  dealt  in  ray  text.     He  adds  two  other  suggestions  that  appeal  to 


The  Problem  of  the  Birth  Supply    6i 

hopefully  for  many  years  in  the  selective  breeding  of 
individuals  by  the  community  as  a  whole.  If  at  any 
time  certainties  should  replace  speculations  in  the  field 
of  inheritance,  then  I  fancy  the  common-sense  of 
humanity  will  be  found  to  be  in  favour  of  the  imme- 
diate application  of  that  knowledge  to  life.  At  present 
almost  every  citizen  in  the  civilized  State  respects  the 
rules  of  the  laws  of  consanguinity,  so  far  as  they  affect 
brothers  and  sisters,  with  an  absolute  respect — an  enor- 
mous triumph  of  training  over  instinct,  as  Dr.  Beattie 
Crozier  has  pointed  out — and  if  in  the  future  it  should 
be  found  possible  to  divide  up  humanity  into  groups, 
some  of  which  could  pair  with  one  another  only  to  the 
disadvantage  of  the  offspring,  and  some  of  which  had 
better  have  no  offspring,  I  believe  there  would  be 
remarkably  little  difficulty  in  enforcing  a  system  of 
taboos  in  accordance  with  such  knowledge.  Only  it 
would  have  to  be  absolutely  certain  knowledge  proved 
and  proved  again  up  to  the  hilt.  If  a  truth  is  worth 
application  it  is  worth  hammering  home,  and  we  have 
no  right  to  expect  common  men  to  obey  conclusions 
upon  which  specialists  are  as  yet  not  lucidly  agreed.* 

me  very  strongly.  He  proposes  to  bar  all  "cases  of  non-accidental 
disease  in  which  life  is  saved  by  the  surgeon's  knife,"  and  he  instances 
particularly,  strangulated  hernia  and  ovarian  cyst.  And  he  also  calls 
attention  to  apoplectic  breakdown  and  premature  senility.  All  these 
are  suggestions  of  great  value  for  individual  conduct,  but  none  of  them 
have  that  quality  of  certainty  that  justifies  collective  action. 

>  It  has  been  pointed  out  to  me  by  my  friend,  Mr.  Graham  Wallas,  that 
although  the  State  may  not  undertake  any  positive  schemes  for  selective 
breeding  in  the  present  state  of  our  knowledge,  it  can  no  more  evade 
a  certain  reaction  upon  these  things  than  the  individual  can  evade  a 


62  Mankind  in  the  Making 

That,  however,  is  only  one  aspect  of  this  question. 
There  are  others  from  which  the  New  Repiibhcan  may 
also  approach  this  problem  of  the  quality  of  the  birth 
supply. 

In  relation  to  personal  conduct  all  these  things  as- 
sume another  colour  altogether.  Let  us  be  clear  upon 
that  point.  The  state,  the  community,  may  only  act 
upon  certainties,  but  the  essential  fact  in  individual  life 
is  experiment.  Individuality  is  experiment.  While 
in  matters  of  public  regulation  and  control  it  is  wiser 
not  to  act  at  all  than  to  act  upon  theories  and  uncer- 

practical  solution.  Although  we  cannot  say  of  any  specific  individual 
that  he  or  she  is,  or  is  not,  of  exceptional  reproductive  value  to  the 
State,  we  may  still  be  able,  he  thinks,  to  point  out  classes  which  arc 
very  probably,  as  a  whole,  good  reproductive  classes,  and  we  may  be 
able  to  promote,  or  at  least  to  avoid  hindering,  their  increase.  He 
instances  the  female  elementary  teacher  as  being  probably,  as  a  type, 
a  more  intelligent  and  more  energetic  and  capable  girl  than  the  average 
of  the  stratum  from  which  she  arises,  and  he  concludes  she  has  a  higher 
reproductive  value — a  view  contrary  to  my  argument  in  the  text  that 
reproductive  and  personal  value  are  perhaps  independent.  He  tells 
me  that  it  is  the  practice  of  many  large  school  boards  in  this  country 
to  dismiss  women  teachers  on  marriage,  or  to  refuse  promotion  to  these 
when  they  become  mothers,  which  is,  of  course,  bad  for  the  race  if 
personal  and  reproductive  value  are  identical.  He  would  have  them 
retain  their  positions  regardless  of  the  check  to  their  eflSciency  mater- 
nity entails.  This  is  a  curiously  indirect  way  towards  what  one  might 
call  Galtonism.  Practically  he  proposes  to  endow  mothers  in  the 
name  of  education.  For  my  own  part  I  do  not  agree  with  him  that 
this  class,  any  more  than  any  other  class,  can  be  shown  to  have  a  high 
reproductive  value — which  is  the  matter  under  analysis  in  this  paper — 
though  I  will  admit  that  an  ex-teacher  will  probably  do  infinitely  more 
for  her  children  than  if  she  were  an  illiterate  or  untrained  woman.  I 
can  only  reiterate  my  conviction  that  nothing  really  effective  can  be 
organized  in  these  matters  until  we  are  much  clearer  than  we  are  at 


The  Problem  of  the  Birth  Supply    63 

tainties ;  while  the  State  may  very  weh  wait  for  a  gen- 
eration or  half  a  dozen  generations  until  knowledge 
comes  up  to  these — at  present — insoluble  problems,  the 
private  life  must  go  on  now,  and  go  upon  probabilities 
where  certainties  fail.  When  we  do  not  know  what  is 
indisputably  right,  then  we  have  to  use  our  judgments 
to  the  utmost  to  do  each  what  seems  to  him  probably 
right.  The  New  Republican  in  his  private  life  and  in 
the  exercise  of  his  private  influence,  must  do  what 
seems  to  him  best  for  the  race ;  ^  he  must  not  beget  chil- 
dren heedlessly  and  unwittingly  because  of  his  incom- 

present  in  our  ideas  about  them,  and  that  a  pubHc  body  devoted  to 
education  has  no  business  either  to  impose  cehbacy,  or  subsidize  famihes, 
or  experiment  at  all  in  these  affairs.  Not  only  in  the  case  of  elementary 
teachers,  but  in  the  case  of  soldiers,  sailors,  and  so  on,  the  State  may 
do  much  to  promote  or  discourage  marriage  and"  offspring,  and  no 
doubt  it  is  also  true,  as  Mr.  Wallas  insists,  that  the  problems  of  the 
foreign  immigrant  and  of  racial  intermarriage,  loom  upon  us.  But 
since  we  have  no  applicable  science  whatever  here,  since  there  is  no 
certainty  in  any  direction  that  any  collective  course  may  not  be  col- 
lectively evil  rather  than  good,  there  is  nothing  for  it,  I  hold,  but  to  leave 
these  things  to  individual  experiment,  and  to  concentrate  our  efforts 
where  there  is  a  clearer  hope  of  effective  consequence.  Leave  things  to 
individual  initiative  and  some  of  us  will,  by  luck  or  inspiration,  go 
right;  take  public  action  on  an  insufficient  basis  of  knowledge  and  there 
is  a  clear  prospect  of  collective  error.  The  imminence  of  these  questions 
argues  for  nothing  except  prompt  and  vigorous  research. 

'  He  would  certainly  try  to  discourage  this  sort  of  thing.  The  para- 
graph is  from  the  Morning  Post  (Sept.,  1902): — 

"Wedded  in  Silence. — A  deaf  and  dumb  wedding  was  celebrated  at 
Saffron  Walden  yesterday,  when  Frederick  James  Baish  and  Emily 
Lettige  King,  both  deaf  and  dumb,  were  married.  The  bride  was 
attended  by  deaf  and  dumb  bridesmaids,  and  upwards  of  thirty  deaf 
and  dumb  friends  were  present.  The  ceremony  was  performed  by  the 
Rev.  A.  Payne,  of  the  Deaf  and  Dumb  Church,  London." 


64  Mankind  in  the  Making 

plete  assurance.  It  is  pretty  obviously  his  duty  to 
examine  himself  patiently  and  thoroughly,  and  if  he 
feels  that  he  is,  on  the  whole,  an  average  or  rather 
more  than  an  average  man,  then  upon  the  cardinal 
principle  laid  down  in  our  first  paper,  it  is  his  most 
immediate  duty  to  have  children  and  to  equip  them 
fully  for  the  affairs  of  life.  Moreover  he  will,  I  think, 
lose  no  opportunity  of  speaking  and  acting  in  such  a 
manner  as  to  restore  to  marriage  something  of  the 
solemnity  and  gravity  the  Victorian  era — that  age  of 
nasty  sentiment,  sham  delicacy  and  giggles — has  to  so 
large  an  extent  refused  to  give  it. 

And  though  the  New  Republicans,  in  the  existing 
lack  of  real  guiding  knowledge,  will  not  dare  to  inter- 
vene in  specific  cases,  there  is  another  method  of  influ- 
encing parentage  that  men  of  good  intent  may  well 
bear  in  mind.  To  attack  a  specific  type  is  one  thing, 
to  attack  a  specific  quality  is  another.  It  may  be  im- 
possible to  set  aside  selected  persons  from  the  popula- 
tion and  say  to  them,  "You  are  cowardly,  weak,  silly, 
mischievous  people,  and  if  we  tolerate  you  in  this 
world  it  is  on  condition  that  you  do  not  found  fam- 
ilies." But  it  may  be  quite  possible  to  bear  in  mind 
that  the  law  and  social  arrangements  may  foster  and 
protect  the  cowardly  and  the  mean,  may  guard  stu- 
pidity against  the  competition  of  enterprise,  and  may 
secure  honour,  power  and  authority  in  the  hands  of 
the  silly  and  the  base;  and,  by  the  guiding  principle 
we  have  set  before  ourselves,  to  seek  every  conceivable 
alteration  of  such  laws  and  such  social  arrangements 


The  Problem  of  the  Birth  Supply    65 

is  no  more  than  the  New  RepubHcan's  duty.  It  may 
be  impossible  to  select  and  intermarry  the  selected  best 
of  our  race,  but  at  any  rate  we  can  do  a  thousand 
things  to  equalize  the  chances  and  make  good  and 
desirable  qualities  lead  swiftly  and  clearly  to  ease  and 
honourable  increase. 

At  present  it  is  a  shameful  and  embittering  fact  that 
a  gifted  man  from  the  poorer  strata  of  society  must 
too  often  buy  his  personal  development  at  the  cost  of 
his  posterity ;  he  must  either  die  childless  and  success- 
ful for  the  children  of  the  stupid  to  reap  what  he  has 
sown,  or  sacrifice  his  gift — a  wretched  choice  and  an 
evil  thing  for  the  world  at  large.^ 

So  far  at  least  we  may  go,  towards  improving  the 
quality  of  the  average  birth  now,  but  it  is  manifestly 
only  a  very  slow  and  fractional  advance  that  we  shall 
get  by  these  expedients.  The  obstacle  to  any  ampler 
enterprise  is  ignorance  and  ignorance  alone — not  the 
ignorance  of  a  majority  in  relation  to  a  minority,  but 
an  absolute  want  of  knowledge.  If  we  knew  more 
we  could  do  more. 

Our  main  attack  in  this  enterprise  of  improving  the 

'  This  aspect  of  New  Republican  possibilities  comes  in  again  at  an- 
other stage,  and  at  that  stage  its  treatment  will  be  resumed.  The 
method  and  possibility  of  binding  up  discredit  and  failure  with  mean 
and  undesirable  qualities,  and  of  setting  a  premium  upon  the  nobler 
attributes,  is  a  matter  that  touches  not  only  upon  the  quality  of  births, 
but  upon  the  general  educational  quality  of  the  State  in  which  a  young 
citizen  develops.  It  is  convenient  to  hold  over  any  detailed  expansions 
of  this,  therefore,  until  we  come  to  the  general  question,  how  the  laws, 
institutions  and  customs  of  to-day  go  to  make  or  unmake  the  men  of 
to-morrow. 


66  Mankind  in  the  Making 

birth  supply  must  lie,  therefore,  through  research.  If 
we  cannot  act  ourselves,  we  may  yet  hold  a  light  for 
our  children  to  see.  At  present,  if  there  is  a  man  spe- 
cially gifted  and  specially  disposed  for  such  intricate 
and  laborious  inquiry,  such  criticism  and  experiment 
as  this  question  demands,  the  world  offers  him  neither 
food  nor  shelter,  neither  attention  nor  help ;  he  cannot 
hope  for  a  tithe  of  such  honours  as  are  thrust  in  pro- 
fusion upon  pork-butchers  and  brewers,  he  will  be 
heartily  despised  by  ninety-nine  per  cent,  of  the  people 
he  encounters,  and  unless  he  has  some  irrelevant  in- 
come, he  will  die  childless  and  his  line  will  perish  with 
him,  for  all  the  service  he  may  give  to  the  future  of 
mankind.  And  as  great  mental  endowments  do  not, 
unhappily,  necessarily  involve  a  passion  for  obscurity, 
contempt  and  extinction,  it  is  probable  that  under  ex- 
isting conditions  such  a  man  will  give  his  mind  to  some 
pursuit  less  bitterly  unremunerative  and  shameful.  It 
is  a  stupid  superstition  that  "genius  will  out"  in  spite 
of  all  discouragement.  The  fact  that  great  men  have 
risen  against  crushing  disadvantages  in  the  past  proves 
nothing  of  the  sort ;  this  roll-call  of  survivors  does  no 
more  than  give  the  measure  of  the  enormous  waste  of 
human  possibility  human  stupidity  has  achieved.  Men 
of  exceptional  gifts  have  the  same  broad  needs  as  com- 
mon men,  food,  clothing,  honour,  attention,  and  the 
help  of  their  fellows  in  self-respect;  they  may  not  need 
them  as  ends,  but  they  need  them  by  the  way,  and  at 
present  the  earnest  study  of  heredity  produces  none  of 
these  bye-products.  It  lies  before  the  New  Repub- 
lican to  tilt  the  balance  in  this  direction. 


The  Problem  of  the  Birth  Supply    67 

There  are,  no  doubt,  already  a  number  of  unselfish 
and  fortunately  placed  men  who  are  able  to  do  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  work  in  this  direction ;  Professor  Cos- 
sar  Ewart,  for  example,  one  of  those  fine,  subtle,  un- 
honoured  workers  who  are  the  glory  of  British  sci- 
ence and  the  condemnation  of  our  social  order,  has 
done  much  to  clarify  the  discussion  of  telegony  and 
prepotency,  and  there  are  many  such  medical  men  as 
Mr.  Reid  who  broaden  their  daily  practice  by  attention 
to  these  great  issues.  One  thinks  of  certain  other 
names.  Professors  Karl  Pearson,  Weldon,  Lloyd 
Morgan,  J.  A.  Thomson  and  Meldola,  Dr.  Benthall 
and  Messrs.  Bateson,  Cunningham,  Pocock,  Havelock 
Ellis,  E.  A.  Fay  and  Stuart  Menteath  occur  to  me, 
only  to  remind  me  how  divided  their  attention  has  had 
to  be.  As  many  others,  perhaps,  have  slipped  my 
memory  now.  Not  half  a  hundred  altogether  in  all 
this  wide  world  of  English-speaking  men !  For  one 
such  worker  we  need  fifty  if  this  science  of  heredity  is 
to  grow  to  practicable  proportions.  We  need  a  litera- 
ture, we  need  a  special  public  and  an  atmosphere  of 
attention  and  discussion.  Every  man  who  grasps  the 
New  Republican  idea  brings  these  needs  nearer  satis- 
faction, but  if  only  some  day  the  New  Republic  could 
catch  the  ear  of  a  prince,  a  little  weary  of  being  the 
costumed  doll  of  grown-up  children,  the  decoy  dummy 
of  fashionable  tradesmen,  or  if  it  could  invade  and 
capture  the  mind  of  a  multi-millionaire,  these  things 
might  come  almost  at  a  stride.  This  missing  science 
of  heredity,  this  unworked  mine  of  knowledge  on  the 


68  Mankind  in  the  Making 

borderland  of  biology  and  anthropology,  which  for  all 
practical  purposes  is  as  unworked  now  as  it  was  in 
the  days  of  Plato,  is,  in  simple  truth,  ten  times  more 
important  to  humanity  than  all  the  chemistry  and 
physics,  all  the  technical  and  industrial  science  that 
ever  has  been  or  ever  will  be  discovered. 

So  much  for  the  existing  possibilities  of  making 
the  race  better  by  breeding.  For  the  rest  of  these 
papers  we  shall  take  the  births  into  the  world,  for  the 
most  part,  as  we  find  them. 

fMr.  Stuart  Menteath  remarks  apropos  of  this  question  of  the  repro- 
duction of  exceptional  people  that  it  is  undesirable  to  suggest  voluntary 
extinction  in  any  case.  If  a  man,  thinking  that  his  family  is  "tainted," 
displays  so  much  foresightcd  patriotism,  humility,  and  lifelong  self- 
denial  as  to  have  no  children,  the  presumption  is  that  the  loss  to  humanity 
by  the  discontinuance  of  such  a  type  is  greater  than  the  gain.  "Conceit 
in  smallest  bodies  strongest  works,"  and  it  does  not  follow  that  a  sense 
of  one's  own  excellence  justifies  one's  utmost  fecundity  or  the  reverse. 
Mr.  Vrooman,  who,  with  Mrs.  Vrooman,  founded  Ruskin  Hall  at 
Oxford,  writes  to  much  the  same  effect.  He  argues  that  people  intel- 
ligent enough  and  moral  enough  to  form  such  resolutions  are  just  the 
sort  of  people  who  ought  not  to  form  them.  Mr.  Stuart  Menteath  also 
makes  a  most  admirable  suggestion  with  regard  to  male  and  female 
geniuses  who  are  absorbed  in  their  careers.  Although  the  genius  may 
not  have  or  rear  a  large  family,  something  might  be  done  to  preserve 
the  stock  by  assisting  his  or  her  brothers  and  sisters  to  support  and 
educate  their  children.] 


Ill 

Certain  Wholesale  Aspects  of  Man-making 


With  a  skin  of  infinite  delicacy  that  life  will  harden 
very  speedily,  with  a  discomforted  writhing  little 
body,  with  a  weak  and  wailing  outcry  that  stirs  the 
heart,  the  creature  conies  protesting  into  the  world, 
and  unless  death  win  a  victory,  we  and  chance  and 
the  forces  of  life  in  it,  make  out  of  that  soft  helpless- 
ness a  man.  Certain  things  there  are  inevitable  in 
that  man  and  unalterable,  stamped  upon  his  being  long 
before  the  moment  of  his  birth,  the  inherited  things, 
the  inherent  things,  his  final  and  fundamental  self. 
This  is  his  "heredity,"  his  incurable  reality,  the  thing 
that  out  of  all  his  being,  stands  the  test  of  survival 
and  passes  on  to  his  children.  Certain  things  he  must 
be,  certain  things  he  may  be,  and  certain  things  are  for 
ever  beyond  his  scope.  That  much  his  parentage  de- 
fines for  him,  that  is  the  natural  man. 

But,  in  addition,  there  is  much  else  to  make  up  the 
whole  adult  man  as  we  know  him.  There  is  all  that 
he  has  learnt  since  his  birth,  all  that  he  has  been  taught 
to  do  and  trained  to  do,  his  language,  the  circle  of 
ideas  he  has  taken  to  himself,  the  disproportions  that 

69 


70  Mankind  in  the  Making 

come  from  unequal  exercise  and  the  bias  due  to  cir- 
cumambient suggestion.  There  are  a  thousand  habits 
and  a  thousand  prejudices,  powers  undeveloped  and 
skill  laboriously  acquired.  There  are  scars  upon  his 
body,  and  scars  upon  his  mind.  All  these  are  sec- 
ondary things,  things  capable  of  modification  and 
avoidance;  they  constitute  the  manufactured  man,  the 
artificial  man.  And  it  is  chiefly  with  all  this  super- 
posed and  adherent  and  artificial  portion  of  a  man 
that  this  and  the  following  paper  will  deal.  The  ques- 
tion of  improving  the  breed,  of  raising  the  average 
human  heredity  we  have  discussed  and  set  aside.  We 
are  going  to  draw  together  now  as  many  things  as 
possible  that  bear  upon  the  artificial  constituent,  the 
made  and  controllable  constituent  in  the  mature  and 
fully-developed  man.  We  are  going  to  consider  how 
it  is  built  up  and  how  it  may  be  built  up,  we  are  going 
to  attempt  a  rough  analysis  of  the  whole  complex 
process  by  which  the  civilized  citizen  is  evolved  from 
that  raw  and  wailing  little  creature. 

Before  his  birth,  at  the  very  moment  when  his  being 
becomes  possible,  the  inherent  qualities  and  limitations 
of  a  man  are  settled  for  good  and  all,  whether  he  will 
be  a  negro  or  a  white  man,  whether  he  will  be  free  or 
not  of  inherited  disease,  whether  he  will  be  passionate 
or  phlegmatic  or  imaginative  or  six-fingered  or  with  a 
snub  or  aquiline  nose.  And  not  only  that,  but  even  be- 
fore his  birth  the  qualities  that  are  not  strictly  and  in- 
evitably inherited  are  also  beginning  to  be  made.  The 
artificial,  the  avoidable  handicap  also,  may  have  com- 


Wholesale  Aspects  of  Man-making    7 1 

menced  in  the  worrying,  the  overworking  or  the  starv- 
ing of  his  mother.  In  the  first  few  months  of  his  Hfe 
very  shght  differences  in  treatment  may  have  Hfe-long 
consequences.  No  doubt  there  is  an  extraordinary 
recuperative  power  in  very  young  children ;  if  they  do 
not  die  under  neglect  or  ill-treatment  they  recover  to 
an  extent  incomparably  greater  than  any  adult  could 
do,  but  there  remains  still  a  wide  marginal  difference 
between  what  they  become  and  what  they  might  have 
been.  With  every  year  of  life  the  recuperative  qual- 
ity diminishes,  the  initial  handicap  becomes  more 
irrevocable,  the  effects  of  ill-feeding,  of  unwholesome 
surroundings,  of  mental  and  moral  infections,  become 
more  inextricably  a  part  of  the  growing  individuality. 
And  so  we  may  well  begin  our  study  by  considering 
the  circumstances  under  which  the  opening  phase,  the 
first  five  years  of  life,  are  most  safely  and  securely 
passed. 

Food,  warmth,  cleanliness  and  abundant  fresh  air 
there  must  be  from  the  first,  and  unremitting  attention, 
such  attention  as  only  love  can  sustain.  And  in  addi- 
tion there  must  be  knowledge.  It  is  a  pleasant  super- 
stition that  Nature  (who  in  such  connections  be- 
comes feminine  and  assumes  a  capital  N)  is  to  be 
trusted  in  these  matters.  It  is  a  pleasant  superstition 
to  which,  some  of  us,  under  the  agreeable  counsels 
of  sentimental  novelists,  of  thoughtless  mercenary 
preachers,  and  ignorant  and  indolent  doctors,  have 
offered  up  a  child  or  so.  We  are  persuaded  to  believe 
that  a  mother  has  an  instinctive  knowledge  of  what- 


72  Mankind  in  the  Making 

ever  is  necessary  for  a  child's  welfare,  and  the  child, 
until  it  reaches  the  knuckle-rapping  age  at  least,  an 
instinctive  knowledge  of  its  own  requirements.  What- 
ever proceedings  are  most  suggestive  of  an  ideal  naked 
savage  leading  a  "natural"  life,  are  supposed  to  be 
not  only  more  advantageous  to  the  child  but  in  some 
mystical  way  more  moral.  The  spectacle  of  an  under- 
sized porter-fed  mother,  for  example,  nursing  a  spotted 
and  distressful  baby,  is  exalted  at  the  expense  of  the 
clean  and  simple  artificial  feeding  that  is  often  advisa- 
ble to-day.  Yet  the  mortality  of  first-born  children 
should  indicate  that  a  modern  woman  carries  no  in- 
stinctive system  of  baby  management  about  with  her 
in  her  brain,  even  if  her  savage  ancestress  had  any- 
thing of  the  sort,  and  both  the  birth  rate  and  the  in- 
fantile death  rate  of  such  noble  savages  as  our  civiliza- 
tion has  any  chance  of  observing,  suggest  a  certain 
generous  carelessness,  a  certain  spacious  indifference 
to  individual  misery,  rather  than  a  trustworthy  pre- 
cision of  individual  guidance  about  Nature's  way. 

This  cant  of  Nature's  trustworthiness  is  partly  a 
survival  of  the  day  of  Rousseau  and  Sturm  (of  the 
Reflections),  when  untravelled  men,  orthodox  and  un- 
orthodox alike,  in  artificial  wigs,  spouted  in  unison  in 
this  regard ;  partly  it  is  the  half  instinctive  tactics  of 
the  lax  and  lazy-minded  to  evade  trouble  and  austeri- 
ties. The  incompetent  medical  practitioner,  incapable 
of  regimen,  repeats  this  cant  even  to-day,  though  he 
knows  full  well  that,  left  to  Nature,  men  over-eat 
themselves  almost  as  readily  as  dogs,  contract  a  thou- 


JVholesale  Aspects  of  Man-making    73 

sand  diseases  and  exhaust  their  last  vitaHty  at  fifty, 
and  that  half  the  white  women  in  the  world  would  die 
with  their  first  children  still  unborn.  He  knows,  too, 
that  to  the  details  of  such  precautionary  measures  as 
vaccination,  for  example,  instinct  is  strongly  opposed, 
and  that  drainage  and  filterage  and  the  use  of  soap  in 
washing  are  manifestly  unnatural  things.  That 
large,  naked,  virtuous,  pink.  Natural  Man,  drinking 
pure  spring  water,  eating  the  fruits  of  the  earth,  and 
living  to  ninety  in  the  open  air  is  a  fantasy ;  he  never 
was  nor  will  be.  The  real  savage  is  a  nest  of  para- 
sites within  and  without,  he  smells,  he  rots,  he  starves. 
Forty  is  a  great  age  for  him.  He  is  as  full  of  artifice 
as  his  civilized  brother,  only  not  so  wise.  As  for  his 
moral  integrity,  let  the  curious  inquirer  seek  an  ac- 
count of  the  Tasmanian,  or  the  Australian,  or  the 
Polynesian  before  "sophistication"  came. 

The  very  existence  and  nature  of  man  is  an  inter- 
ference with  Nature  and  Nature's  ways,  using  Nature 
in  this  sense  of  the  repudiation  of  expedients.  Man 
is  the  tool-using  animal,  the  word-using  animal,  the 
animal  of  artifice  and  reason,  and  the  only  possible 
"return  to  Nature"  for  him — if  we  scrutinize  the 
phrase — would  be  a  return  to  the  scratching,  promis- 
cuous, arboreal  simian.  To  rebel  against  instinct,  to 
rebel  against  limitation,  to  evade,  to  trip  up,  and  at 
last  to  close  with  and  grapple  and  conquer  the  forces 
that  dominate  him,  is  the  fundamental  being  of  man. 
And  from  the  very  outset  of  his  existence,  from  the 
instant  of  his  birth,  if  the  best  possible  thing  is  to  be 


74  Mankmd  in  the  Making 

made  of  him,  wise  contrivance  must  surround  him. 
The  soft,  new,  Hving  thing  must  be  watched  for  every 
sign  of  discomfort,  it  must  be  weighed  and  measured, 
it  must  be  thought  about,  it  must  be  talked  to  and 
sung  to,  skilfully  and  properly,  and  presently  it  must 
be  given  things  to  see  and  handle  that  the  stirring 
germ  of  its  mind  may  not  go  unsatisfied.  From  the 
very  beginning,  if  we  are  to  do  our  best  for  a  child, 
there  must  be  forethought  and  knowledge  quite  be- 
yond the  limit  of  instinct's  poor  equipment. 

Now,  for  a  child  to  have  all  these  needs  supplied 
implies  certain  other  conditions.  The  constant  loving 
attention  is  to  be  got  only  from  a  mother  or  from 
some  well-affected  girl  or  woman.  It  is  not  a  thing 
to  be  hired  for  money,  nor  contrivable  on  any  whole- 
sale plan.  Possibly  there  may  be  ways  of  cherishing 
and  nursing  infants  by  wholesale  that  will  keep  them 
alive,  but  at  best  these  are  second  best  ways,  and  we 
are  seeking  the  best  possible.  A  very  noble,  excep- 
tionally loving  and  quite  indefatigable  woman  might 
conceivably  direct  the  development  of  three  or  four 
little  children  from  their  birth  onward,  or,  with  very 
good  assistance,  even  of  six  or  seven  at  a  time,  as  well 
as  a  good  mother  could  do  for  one,  but  it  would  be  a 
very  rare  and  wonderful  thing.  We  must  put  that 
aside  as  an  exceptional  thing,  quite  impossible  to  pro- 
vide when  it  is  most  needed,  and  we  must  fall  back 
upon  the  fact  that  the  child  must  have  a  mother  or 
nurse — and  it  must  have  that  attendant  exclusively  to 
itself  for  the  first  year  or  so  of  life.     The  mother  or 


JVholesale  Aspects  of  Man-making    75 

nurse  must  be  in  health,  physically  and  morally,  well 
fed  and  contented,  and  able  to  give  her  attention 
mainly,  if  not  entirely,  to  the  little  child.  The  child 
must  lie  warmly  in  a  well-ventilated  room,  with  some 
one  availably  in  hearing  day  and  night,  there  must  be 
plentiful  warm  water  to  wash  it,  plenty  of  wrappings 
and  towellings  and  so  forth  for  it;  it  is  best  to  take 
it  often  into  the  open  air,  and  for  this,  under  urban 
or  suburban  conditions  at  any  rate,  a  perambulator  is 
almost  necessary.  The  room  must  be  clean  and 
brightly  lit,  and  prettily  and  interestingly  coloured  if 
we  are  to  get  the  best  results.  These  things  imply  a 
certain  standard  of  prosperity  in  the  circumstances  of 
the  child's  birth.  Either  the  child  must  be  fed  in  the 
best  way  from  a  mother  in  health  and  abundance,  or 
if  it  is  to  be  bottle  fed,  there  must  be  the  most  elab- 
orate provision  for  sterilizing  and  warming  the  milk, 
and  adjusting  its  composition  to  the  changing  powers 
of  the  child's  assimilation.  These  conditions  imply  a 
house  of  a  certain  standard  of  comfort  and  equip- 
ment, and  it  is  manifest  the  mother  cannot  be  earning 
her  own  living  before  and  about  the  time  of  the  child's 
birth,  nor,  unless  she  is  going  to  employ  a  highly 
skilled,  trustworthy,  and  probably  expensive  person  as 
nurse,  for  some  year  or  so  after  it.  She  or  the  nurse 
must  be  of  a  certain  standard  of  intelligence  and  edu- 
cation, trained  to  be  observant  and  keep  her  temper, 
and  she  must  speak  her  language  with  a  good,  clear 
accent.  Moreover,  behind  the  mother  and  readily 
available,  must  be  a  highly-skilled  medical  man. 


76 


Mankind  in  the  Making 


Not  to  have  these  things  means  a  handicap.     Not 
to  have  that  very  watchful  feeding  and  attention  at 


-160  lbs 


Weight 


first  means  a  loss  of  nutrition,  a  retarding  of  growth, 
that  will  either  never  be  recovered  or  will  be  recovered 
later  at  the  expense  of  mental  development  or  physical 


Wholesale  Aspects  of  Man-making    77 

strength.     The  early  handicap  may  also  involve  a  de- 
rangement of  the  digestion,  a  liability  to  stomachic 


\k 


might 


A. 


{3 


;s'r^ 


191^ 


,5  ^Sft.lOiV 


_5ft;$Jft. 


_^£». 


_4fl.6ia 


.4ft> 


and  other  troubles,  that  may  last  throughout  life. 
Not  to  have  the  singing  and  talking,  and  the  varied 
interest  of  coloured  objects  and  toys,  means  a  falling 


78  Mankind  in  the  Making 

away  from  the  best  mental  development,  and  a  taci- 
turn nurse,  or  a  nurse  with  a  base  accent,  means  back- 
wardness and  needless  difficulty  with  the  beginning  of 
speech.  Not  to  be  born  within  reach  of  abundant 
changes  of  clothing  and  abundant  water,  means — 
however  industrious  and  cleanly  the  instincts  of  nurse 
and  mother — a  lack  of  the  highest  possible  cleanliness 
and  a  lack  of  health  and  vitality.  And  the  absence  of 
highly-skilled  medical  advice,  or  the  attentions  of 
over-worked  and  under-qualified  practitioners,  may 
convert  a  transitory  crisis  or  a  passing  ailment  into 
permanent  injury  or  fatal  disorder. 

It  is  very  doubtful  if  these  most  favourable  condi- 
tions fall  to  the  lot  of  more  than  a  quarter  of  the  chil- 
dren born  to-day  even  in  England,  where  infant  mor- 
tality is  at  its  lowest.  The  rest  start  handicapped. 
They  start  handicapped,  and  fail  to  reach  their  highest 
possible  development.  They  are  born  of  mothers  pre- 
occupied by  the  necessity  of  earning  a  living  or  by 
vain  occupations,  or  already  battered  and  exhausted 
by  immoderate  child-bearing;  they  are  born  into  in- 
sanity and  ugly  or  inconvenient  homes,  their  mothers 
or  nurses  are  ignorant  and  incapable,  there  is  insuffi- 
cient food  or  incompetent  advice,  there  is,  if  they  are 
town  children,  nothing  for  their  lungs  but  vitiated  air, 
and  there  is  not  enough  sunlight  for  them.  And  ac- 
cordingly they  fall  away  at  the  very  outset  from  what 
they  might  be,  and  for  the  most  part  they  never  re- 
cover their  lost  start. 

Just  what  this  handicap  amounts  to,  so  far  as  it 


IVholesale  Asfiecfs  of  Man-making    79 

works  out  in  physical  consequences,  is  to  be  gauged 
by  certam  almost  classical  figures,  which  I  have  here 

iT^^A        f '''"'  '^''"   '"  S^^P'^-^   f°™-     These 
hgures  do  not  present  our  total  failure,  they  merely 

show  how  far  the  less  fortunate  section  of  L  com- 

mun,ty  falls  short  of  the  more  fortunate.     They  a" 

taken  from  Clififord  Allbutfs  System  of  Mcdicinc\.n 

Hyg,ene  of  Youth,"  Dr.  Clement  Dukes).     1CC64 

boys  and  young  men  were  measured  and  weighed  to 

welhtT4-  T'  7'r  "='*  ~'"'™^  -d'-'^  'he 
Tf  vo  ,th  I  I-  °^  ''""^'^^  ='"<^  ^''S^'  respectively 
of  youths  of  the  town  artisan  population,  for  the 
various  ages  from  ten  to  twenty-five  indicated  at  the 
heads  of  the  columns.  The  white  additions  to  these 
cohmns  md,cate  the  additional  weight  and  height  of 
the  more  favoured  classes  at  the  same  ages.  Public 
school-boys,  naval  and  military  cadets,  medical  ad 

~7  T''"'''r'  '="^^"  '°  ^"^P--"'  '"e  more 
favoured  classes.     It  will   be  noted   that   while  the 

gnnvth  m  he.ght  of  the  lower  class  boy  falls  sho 

perL  tell  '        T' '""'""  ''''''"  "^  "^^  ^d°'-«"t 
penod  tells  upon  h,s  weight,  and  no  doubt  upon  his 

genera    stamma,  most  conspicuously.     These  figur 

.t  must  be  borne  in  mind,  deal  with  the  living  mem 

bers  of  each  class  at  the  ages  given.     The  mortal  ty 

however    m  the  black  or  lower  class  is  probably    I^ 

XI  :n '"  'W''^'  *^^ ''''  ">■  >'-'  ^"'  'f ' 

r  nt  I       "1  ^r  ','  ™""  ^^^^">'  '""'^^^  'he  ap- 
parent failure  of  the  lower  class.     And  these  matters 

of  height  and  weight  are  only  coarse  material  defi 


8o 


Mankind  in  the  Making 


ciencies. 


Ruiusni  IforSti-     Loni^ 
lOOOi 


3 


sa 


700 


60C 


9a 


¥t 


300 


£00 


IOC 


u 

unless 


They  serve  to  suggest,  but  they  do  not  serve 
to  gauge,  the  far  graver  and  sad- 

IM  der  loss,  the  invisible  and  im- 
I  measurable  loss  through  mental 
I  and  moral  qualities  undeveloped, 
3  I  through  activities  warped  and 
crippled  and  vitality  and  courage 
lowered. 

Moreover,  defective  as  are 
these  urban  artisans,  they  are, 
after  all,  much  more  "picked" 
than  the  youth  of  the  upper 
classes.  They  are  survivors  of 
a  much  more  stringent  process 
of  selection  than  goes  on  amidst 
the  more  hygienic  upper  and 
middle-class  conditions.  The  op- 
posite three  columns  represent 
the  mortality  of  children  under 
five  in  Rutlandshire,  where  it  is 
lowest,  in  the  year  1900,  in 
Dorsetshire,  a  reasonably  good 
county,  and  in  Lancashire,  the 
worst  in  England,  for  the  same 
year.  Each  entire  column  repre- 
sents 1,000  births,  and  the  black- 
ened portion  represents  the  pro- 
I  portion  of  that   1,000  dead  be- 

*-'       ^        fore   the   fifth   birthday.     Now, 
we   are   going   to   assume  that   the    children 


Wholesale  Aspects  of  Man-making    8i 

born  in  Lancashire  are  inherently  weaker  than  the 
children  born  in  Rutland  or  Dorset — and  there  is 
not  the  shadow  of  a  reason  why  we  should  be- 
lieve that — we  must  suppose  that  at  least  i6i  chil- 
dren out  of  every  i,ooo  in  Lancashire  were  killed  by 
the  conditions  into  which  they  were  born.  That  ex- 
cess of  blackness  in  the  third  column  over  that  in  the 
first  represents  a  holocaust  of  children,  that  goes  on 
year  by  year,  a  perennial  massacre  of  the  innocents, 
out  of  which  no  political  capital  can  be  made,  and 
which  is  accordingly  outside  the  sphere  of  practical 
politics  altogether  as  things  are  at  present.  The  same 
men  who  spouted  infinite  mischief  because  a  totally 
unforeseen  and  unavoidable  epidemic  of  measles  killed 
some  thousands  of  children  in  South  Africa,  who, 
for  some  idiotic  or  wicked  vote-catching  purpose, 
attempted  to  turn  that  epidemic  to  the  permanent  em- 
bitterment  of  Dutch  and  English,  these  same  men 
allow  thousands  and  thousands  of  avoidable  deaths  of 
English  children  close  at  hand  to  pass  absolutely  un- 
noticed. The  fact  that  more  than  21,000  little  chil- 
dren died  needlessly  in  Lancashire  in  that  very  same 
year  means  nothing  to  them  at  all.  It  cannot  be  used 
to  embitter  race  against  race,  and  to  hamper  that  pro- 
cess of  world  unification  which  it  is  their  pious  pur- 
pose to  delay. 

It  does  not  at  all  follow  that  even  the  Rutland  103 
represents  the  possible  minimum  of  infant  mortality. 
One  learns  from  the  Register-General's  returns  for 
1 89 1  that  among  the  causes  of  death  specified  in  the 


82  Mankind  in  the  Making 

three  counties  of  Dorset,  Wiltshire,  and  Hereford, 
where  infant  mortahty  is  scarcely  half  what  it  is  in 
the  three  vilest  towns  in  England  in  this  respect,  Pres- 
ton, Leicester,  and  Blackburn,  the  number  of  children 
killed  by  injury  at  birth  is  three  times  as  great  as  it 
is  in  these  same  towns.  Unclassified  "violence"  also 
accounts  for  more  infant  deaths  in  the  country  than 
in  towns.  This  suggests  pretty  clearly  a  delayed 
and  uncertain  medical  attendance  and  rough  con- 
ditions, and  it  points  us  to  still  better  possibilities. 
These  diagrams  and  these  facts  justify  together  a 
reasonable  hope  that  the  mortality  of  infants  under 
five  throughout  England  might  be  brought  to  less  than 
one-third  what  it  is  in  child-destroying  Lancashire  at 
the  present  time,  to  a  figure  that  is  well  under  ninety 
in  the  thousand. 

A  portion  of  infant  and  child  mortality  represents 
no  doubt  the  lingering  and  wasteful  removal  from 
this  world  of  beings  with  inherent  defects,  beings 
who,  for  the  most  part,  ought  never  to  have  been  born, 
and  need  not  have  been  born  under  conditions  of 
greater  foresight.  These,  however,  are  the  merest 
small  fraction  of  our  infant  mortality.  It  leaves  un- 
touched the  fact  that  a  vast  multitude  of  children  of 
untainted  blood  and  good  mental  and  moral  possibili- 
ties, as  many,  perhaps,  as  lOO  in  each  i,ooo  born,  die 
yearly  through  insufficient  food,  insufficient  good  air, 
and  insufficient  attention.  The  plain  and  simple  truth 
is  that  they  are  born  needlessly.  There  are  still  too 
many  births  for  our  civilisation  to  look  after,  we  are 


Wholesale  Aspects  of  Man-making    83 

still  unfit  to  be  trusted  with  a  rising  birth-rate.^ 
These  poor  little  souls  are  born,  amidst  tears  and  suf- 
fering they  gain  such  love  as  they  may,  they  learn  to 
feel  and  suffer,  they  struggle  and  cry  for  food,  for  air, 

•  It  is  a  digression  from  the  argument  of  this  Paper,  but  I  would  like 
to  point  out  here  a  very  popular  misconception  about  the  birth-rate 
which  needs  exposure.  It  is  known  that  the  birth-rate  is  falling  in  all 
European  countries — a  fall  which  has  a  very  direct  relation  to  a  rise  in 
the  mean  standard  of  comfort  and  the  average  age  at  marriage — and 
alarmists  foretell  a  time  when  nations  will  be  extinguished  through  this 
decline.  They  ascribe  it  to  a  certain  decay  in  religious  faith,  to  the 
advance  of  science  and  scepticism,  and  so  forth;  it  is  a  part,  they  say, 
of  a  general  demoralization.  The  thing  is  a  popular  cant  and  quite 
unsupported  by  facts.  The  decline  in  the  birth-rate  is — so  far  as 
England  and  Wales  goes — partly  a  real  decline  due  to  a  decline  in 
gross  immorality,  partly  to  a  real  decline  due  to  the  later  age  at  which 
women  marry,  and  partly  a  statistical  decline  due  to  an  increased  pro- 
portion of  people  too  old  or  too  young  for  child-bearing.  Wherever 
the  infant  mortality  is  falling  there  is  an  apparent  misleading  fall  in 
the  birth-rate  due  to  the  "loading"  of  the  population  with  children. 
Here  are  the  sort  of  figures  that  are  generally  given.  They  are  the 
figures  for  England  and  Wales  for  two  typical  periods. 

Period  1846-1850        ....      33.8  births  per  1000. 

Period  1896-1900        ....      28.0         "  " 

5.8  fall  in  the  birth-rate. 
This  as  it  stands  is  very  striking.     But  if  we  take  the  death-rates  of 
these  two  periods  we  find  that  they  have  fallen  also. 

Period  1846-1850        ....      23.3  deaths  per  1000. 
Period  1896-1900        ....      17.7         "  " 

5.6  fall  in  the  death-rate. 
Let   us  subtract    death-rate   from   birth-rate   and  that  will  give  the 
effective  rate  of  increase  of  the  population. 

Period  1 846-1 850        .        .        .       10.5  effective  rate  of  increase. 
Period  1896-1900        .         .         .        10.3         "  " 

.2  fall  in  the  rate  of  increase. 
But  now  comes  a  curious  thing  that  those  who  praise  the  good  old 


84  Mankind  in  the  Making 

for  the  right  to  develop ;  and  our  civiHsation  at  present 
has  neither  the  courage  to  kill  them  outright  quickly, 
cleanly,  and  painlessly,  nor  the  heart  and  courage  and 
ability  to  give  them  what  they  need.  They  are  over- 
looked and  misused,  they  go  short  of  food  and  air, 
they  fight  their  pitiful  little  battle  for  life  against  the 
cruellest  odds;  and  they  are  beaten.  Battered,  ema- 
ciated, pitiful,  they  are  thrust  out  of  life,  borne  out  of 
our  regardless  world,  stiff  little  life-soiled  sacrifices  to 
the  spirit  of  disorder  against  which  it  is  man's  pre- 
eminent duty  to  battle.  There  has  been  all  the  pain 
in  their  lives,  there  has  been  the  radiated  pain  of  their 
misery,  there  has  been  the  waste  of  their  grudged  and 
insufficient  food,  and  all  the  pain  and  labour  of  their 
mothers,  and  all  the  world  is  the  sadder  for  them  be- 
cause they  have  lived  in  vain. 

§    2. 

Now,  since  our  imaginary  New  Republic,  which  is 
to  set  itself  to  the  making  of  a  better  generation  of 

pre-Board  School  days — the  golden  age  of  virtuous  innocence — ignore. 

The 

Illegitimate  births  in    1846-1850  numbered  2.2  per  1000, 

in  1 89  6- 1 900  they  numbered  1.2  per  1000. 
So  that  if  it  were  not  for  this  fall  in  illegitimate  births  the  period 
1896-1900  would  show  a  positive  rise  in  the  effective  rate  of  increase  of 
.8  per  thousand.  The  eminent  persons  therefore  who  ascribe  our 
falling  birth-rate  to  irreligion  and  so  forth,  either  speak  without  knowl- 
edge or  with  some  sort  of  knowledge  beyond  my  ken.  England  is,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  becoming  not  only  more  hygienic  and  rational,  but 
more  moral  and  more  temperate.  The  highly  moral,  healthy,  prolific, 
pious  England  of  the  past  is  just  another  poetical  delusion  of  the  healthy 
savage  type. 


JVholesale  Aspects  of  Man-making    85 

men,  will  find  the  possibility  of  improving  the  race 
by  selective  breeding  too  remote  for  anything  but  fur- 
ther organised  inquiry,  it  is  evident  that  its  first  point 
of  attack  will  have  to  be  the  wastage  of  such  births  as 
the  world  gets  to-day.  Throughout  the  world  the 
New  Republic  will  address  itself  to  this  problem,  and 
when  a  working  solution  has  been  obtained,  then  the 
New  Republican  on  press  and  platform,  the  New  Re- 
publican in  pulpit  and  theatre,  the  New  Republican 
upon  electoral  committee  and  in  the  ballot  box,  will 
press  weightily  to  see  that  solution  realised.  Upon 
the  theory  of  New  Republicanism  as  it  was  discussed 
in  our  first  paper  an  effective  solution  (effective 
enough,  let  us  say,  to  abolish  seventy  or  eighty  per 
cent.)  of  this  scandal  of  infantile  suffering  would 
have  precedence  over  almost  every  existing  political 
consideration. 

The  problem  of  securing  the  maximum  chance  of 
life  and  health  for  every  baby  born  into  the  world  is 
an  extremely  complicated  one,  and  the  reader  must 
not  too  hastily  assume  that  a  pithy,  complete  recipe  is 
attempted  here.  Yet,  complicated  though  the  prob- 
lem is,  there  does  not  occur  any  demonstrable  impos- 
sibility such  as  there  is  in  the  question  of  selective 
breeding.  I  believe  that  a  solution  is  possible,  that 
its  broad  lines  may  be  already  stated,  and  that  it  could 
very  easily  be  worked  out  to  an  immediate  practical 
application. 

Let  us  glance  first  at  a  solution  that  is  now  widely 
understood  to  be  incorrect.     Philanthropic  people  in 


86  Mankind  in  the  Making 

the  past  have  attempted,  and  many  are  still  striving,  to 
meet  the  birth  waste  by  the  very  obvious  expedients  of 
lying-in  hospitals,  orphanages  and  foundling  institu- 
tions, waifs'  homes,  Barnardo  institutions  and  the  like, 
and  within  certain  narrow  limits  these  things  no  doubt 
serve  a  useful  purpose  in  individual  cases.  But  nowa- 
days there  is  an  increasing  indisposition  to  meet  the 
general  problem  by  such  methods,  because  nowadays 
people  are  alive  to  certain  ulterior  consequences  that 
were  at  first  overlooked.  Any  extensive  relief  of 
parental  responsibility  we  now  know  pretty  certainly 
will  serve  to  encourage  and  stimulate  births  in  just 
those  strata  of  society  where  it  would  seem  to  be  highly 
reasonable  to  believe  they  are  least  desirable.  It  is 
just  where  the  chances  for  a  child  are  least  that  pas- 
sions are  grossest,  basest,  and  most  heedless,  and  stand 
in  the  greatest  need  of  a  sense  of  the  gravity  of  possible 
consequences  to  control  their  play,  and  to  render  it 
socially  innocuous.  If  we  were  to  take  over  or  assist 
all  the  children  born  below  a  certain  level  of  comfort, 
or,  rather,  if  we  were  to  take  over  their  mothers  before 
the  birth  occurred,  and  bring  up  that  great  mass  of 
children  under  the  best  conditions  for  them — suppos- 
ing this  to  be  possible — it  would  only  leave  our  suc- 
cessors in  the  next  generation  a  heavier  task  of  the 
same  sort.  The  assisted  population  would  grow  gen- 
eration by  generation  relatively  to  the  assisting  until 
the  Sinbad  of  Charity  broke  down.  And  quite  early 
in  the  history  of  Charities  it  was  found  that  a  very 
grave  impediment  to  their  beneficial  action  lay  in  one 


PVholesale  Aspects  of  Man-making    87 

of  the  most  commendable  qualities  to  be  found  in  poor 
and  poorish  people,  and  that  is  pride.  While  Chari- 
ties, perhaps,  catch  the  quite  hopeless  cases,  they  leave 
untouched  the  far  more  extensive  mass  of  births  in 
non-pauper,  not  very  prosperous  homes — the  lower 
middle-class  homes  in  towns,  for  example,  which  sup- 
ply a  large  proportion  of  poorly  developed  adults  to 
our  community.  Mr.  Seebohm  Rowntree,  in  his 
'Toverty"  (that  noble,  able,  valuable  book),  has 
shown  that  nearly  thirty  per  cent,  at  least  of  a  typical 
English  town  population  goes  short  of  the  physical 
necessities  of  life.  These  people  are  fiercely  defensive 
in  such  matters  as  this,  and  one  may  no  more  usurp 
and  share  their  parental  responsibility,  badly  though 
they  discharge  it,  than  one  may  handle  the  litter  of  a 
she- wolf. 

These  considerations  alone  would  suffice  to  make  us 
very  suspicious  of  the  philanthropic  method  of  direct 
assistance,  so  far  as  the  remedial  aspect  goes.  But 
there  is  another  more  sweeping  and  comprehensive  ob- 
jection to  this  method.  Philanthropic  institutions,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  rarely  succeed  in  doing  what  they  pro- 
fess and  intend  to  do. 

I  do  not  allude  here  to  the  countless  swindlers  and 
sham  institutions  that  levy  a  tremendous  tribute  upon 
the  heedless  good.  Quite  apart  from  that  wastage 
altogether,  and  speaking  only  of  such  bona  Mc  institu- 
tions as  would  satisfy  Mr.  Labouchere,  they  do  not 
work.  It  is  one  thing  for  the  influential  and  opulent 
inactive  person  of  good  intentions  to  provide  a  mag- 


88  Mankind  in  the  Making 

nificent  building  and  a  lavish  endowment  for  some 
specific  purpose,  and  quite  another  to  attain  in  reality 
the  ostensible  end  of  the  display.  It  is  easy  to  create 
a  general  effect  of  providing  comfort  and  tender  care 
for  helpless  women  who  are  becoming  mothers,  and 
of  tending  and  training  and  educating  their  children, 
but,  in  cold  fact,  it  is  impossible  to  get  enough  capable 
and  devoted  people  to  do  the  work.  In  cold  fact, 
lying-in  hospitals  have  a  tendency  to  become  austere, 
hard,  unsympathetic,  wholesale  concerns,  with  a  dis- 
position to  confuse  and  substitute  moral  for  physical 
well-being.  In  cold  fact,  orphanages  do  not  present 
any  perplexing  resemblance  to  an  earthly  paradise. 
However  warm  the  heart  behind  the  cheque,  the 
human  being  at  the  other  end  of  the  chain  is  apt  to 
find  the  charity  no  more  than  a  rather  inhuman  ma- 
chine. Shining  devotees  there  are,  but  able,  coura- 
geous, and  vigorous  people  are  rare,  and  the  world 
urges  a  thousand  better  employments  upon  them  than 
the  care  of  inferior  mothers  and  inferior  children. 
Exceptionally  good  people  owe  the  world  the  duty  of 
parentage  themselves,  and  it  follows  that  the  rank  and 
file  of  those  in  the  service  of  Charity  falls  far  below 
the  standard  necessary  to  give  these  poor  children  that 
chance  in  the  world  the  cheque-writing  philanthropist 
believes  he  is  giving  them.  The  great  proportion  of 
the  servants  and  administrators  of  Charities  are  do- 
ing that  work  because  they  can  get  nothing  better  to 
do — and  it  is  not  considered  remarkably  high-class 
work.     These  things  have  to  be  reckoned  with  by 


Wholesale  Aspects  of  Man-making    89 

every  philanthropic  person  with  sufficient  faith  to  be- 
Heve  that  an  enterprise  may  not  only  look  well,  but 
do  well.  One  gets  a  Waugh  or  a  Barnardo  now  and 
then,  a  gleam  of  efficiency  in  the  waste,  and  for  the 
rest  this  spectacle  of  stinted  thought  and  unstinted 
giving,  this  modern  Charity,  is  often  no  more  than  a 
pretentious  wholesale  substitute  for  retail  misery  and 
disaster.  Fourteen  million  pounds  a  year,  I  am  told, 
go  to  British  Charities,  and  I  doubt  if  anything  like 
a  fair  million's  worth  of  palliative  amelioration  is 
attained  for  this  expenditure.  As  for  any  permanent 
improvement,  I  doubt  if  all  these  Charities  together 
achieve  a  net  advance  that  could  not  be  got  by  the  dis- 
creet and  able  expenditure  of  ten  or  twelve  thousand 
pounds. 

It  is  one  of  the  grimmest  ironies  in  life,  that  athwart 
the  memory  of  sainted  founders  should  be  written  the 
most  tragic  consequences.  The  Foundling  Hospital 
of  London,  established  by  Coram — to  save  infant 
lives! — buried,  between  1756  and  1760,  10,534  chil- 
dren out  of  14,934  received,  and  the  Dublin  Foundling 
Hospital  (suppressed  in  1835)  had  a  mortality  of 
eighty  per  cent.  The  two  great  Russian  institutions 
are,  I  gather,  about  equally  deadly  with  seventy-five 
per  cent.,  and  the  Italian  institutes  run  to  about  ninety 
per  cent.  The  Florentine  boasts  a  very  beautiful  and 
touching  series  of  putti  by  Delia  Robbia,  that  does 
little  or  nothing  to  diminish  its  death-rate.  So  far 
from  preventing  infant  murder  these  places,  with  the 
noblest  intentions  in  the  world,  have,  for  all  practical 


90  Mankind  in  the  Making 

purposes,  organized  it.  The  London  Foundling,  be  it 
noted,  in  the  reorganized  form  it  assumed  after  its 
first  massacres,  is  not  a  FoundHng  Hospital  at  all. 
An  extremely  limited  number  of  children,  the  illegiti- 
mate children  of  recommended  respectable  but  unfor- 
tunate mothers,  are  converted  into  admirable  bands- 
men for  the  defence  of  the  Empire  or  trained  to  be 
servants  for  people  who  feel  the  need  of  well-trained 
servants,  at  a  gross  cost  that  might  well  fill  the  mind 
of  many  a  poor  clergyman's  son  with  amazement  and 
envy.  And  this  is  probably  a  particularly  well-man- 
aged charity.  It  is  doing  all  that  can  be  expected 
of  it,  and  stands  far  above  the  general  Charitable 
average. 

Every  Poor  Law  Authority  comes  into  the  tangles 
of  these  perplexities.  Upon  the  hands  of  every  one 
of  them  come  deserted  children,  the  children  of  con- 
victed criminals,  the  children  of  pauper  families,  a 
miscellaneous  pitiful  succession  of  responsibilities. 
The  enterprises  they  are  forced  to  undertake  to  meet 
these  charges  rest  on  taxation,  a  financial  basis  far 
stabler  than  the  fitful  good  intentions  of  the  rich,  but 
apart  from  this  advantage  there  is  little  about  them 
to  differentiate  them  from  Charities.  The  method  of 
treatment  varies  from  a  barrack  system,  in  which  the 
children  are  herded  in  huge  asylums  like  those  places 
between  Sutton  and  Banstead,  to  what  is  perhaps  pref- 
erable, the  system  of  boarding-out  little  groups  of  chil- 
dren with  suitable  poor  people.  Provided  such 
boarded-out     children     are     systematically     weighed, 


Wholesale  Aspects  of  Man-making    91 

measured  and  examined,  and  at  once  withdrawn  when 
they  drop  below  average  mental  and  bodily  progress, 
it  would  seem  more  likely  that  a  reasonable  percentage 
should  grow  into  ordinary  useful  citizens  under  these 
latter  conditions  than  under  the  former. 

It  is  well,  however,  to  anticipate  a  very  probable 
side  result  if  we  make  the  boarding  out  of  pauper  chil- 
dren a  regular  rural  industry.  There  will  arise  in 
many  rural  homes  a  very  strong  pecuniary  induce- 
ment to  limit  the  family.  Side  by  side  will  be  a  couple 
with  eight  children  of  their  own,  struggling  hard  to 
keep  them,  and  another  family  with,  let  us  say,  two 
children  of  their  own  blood  and  six  "boarded-out," 
living  in  relative  opulence.  That  side  consequence 
must  be  anticipated.  For  my  own  part  and  for  the 
reasons  given  in  the  second  of  these  papers,  I  do  not 
see  that  it  is  a  very  serious  one  so  far  as  the  future 
goes,  because  I  do  not  think  there  is  much  to  choose 
between  the  "heredity"  of  the  rural  and  the  urban 
strain.  It  is  nonsense  to  pretend  that  we  shall  get 
the  fine  flower  of  the  cottage  population  to  board  pau- 
per children ;  we  shall  induce  respectable  inferior  peo- 
ple living  in  healthy  conditions  to  take  care  of  an 
inferior  sort  of  children  rescued  from  unhealthy  dis- 
reputable conditions — that  is  all.  The  average  inherent 
quality  of  the  resultant  adults  will  be  about  the  same 
whichever  element  predominates. 

Possibly  this  indifference  may  seem  undesirable. 
But  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  the  whole  problem  is 
hard  to  cope  with,  it  is  an  aspect  of  failure,  and  no 


92  Mankind  in  the  Making 

sentimental  juggling  with  facts  will  convert  the  busi- 
ness into  a  beautiful  or  desirable  thing.  Somehow 
or  other  we  have  to  pay.  All  expedients  must  be  pal- 
liatives, all  will  involve  sacrifices;  we  must,  no  doubt, 
adopt  some  of  them  for  our  present  necessities,  but 
they  are  like  famine  relief  works,  to  adopt  them  in  per- 
manence is  a  counsel  of  despair. 

Clearly  it  is  not  along  these  lines  that  the  capable 
men-makers  we  suppose  to  be  attacking  the  problem 
will  spend  much  of  their  energies.  All  the  experi- 
ences of  Charities  and  Poor-Law  Authorities  simply 
confirm  our  postulate  of  the  necessity  of  a  standard 
of  comfort  if  a  child  is  to  have  a  really  good  initial 
chance  in  the  world.  The  only  conceivable  solution 
of  this  problem  is  one  that  will  ensure  that  no  child,  or 
only  a  few  accidental  and  exceptional  children,  will  be 
born  outside  these  advantages.  It  is  no  good  trying 
to  sentimentalize  the  issue  away.  This  is  the  end  we 
must  attain,  to  attain  any  effectual  permanent  im- 
provement in  the  conditions  of  childhood.  A  certain 
number  of  people  have  to  be  discouraged  and  pre- 
vented from  parentage,  and  a  great  number  of  homes 
have  to  be  improved.  How  can  we  ensure  these  ends, 
or  how  far  can  we  go  towards  ensuring  them  ? 

The  first  step  to  ensuring  them  is  certainly  to  do 
all  we  can  to  discourage  reckless  parentage,  and  to 
render  it  improbable  and  difficult.  We  must  make 
sure  that  whatever  we  do  for  the  children,  the  burden 
of  parental  responsibility  must  not  be  lightened  a 
feather-weight.     All  the  experience  of  two  hundred 


IVholesale  Aspects  of  Man-making    93 

years  of  charity  and  poor  law  legislation  sustains  that. 
But  to  accept  that  as  a  first  principle  is  one  thing,  and 
to  apply  it  by  using  a  wretched  little  child  as  our  in- 
strument in  the  exemplary  punishment  of  its  parent  is 
another.     At  present  that  is  our  hideous  practice.     So 
long  as  the  parents  are  not  convicted  criminals,  so 
long  as  they  do  not  practise  indictable  cruelty  upon 
their  offspring,  so  long  as  the  children  themselves  fall 
short  of  criminality,  we  insist  upon  the  parent  "keep- 
ing" the  child.     It  may  be  manifest  the  child  is  ill-fed, 
harshly  treated,  insufficiently  clothed,  dirty  and  living 
among  surroundings  harmful  to  body  and  soul  alike, 
but  we  merely  take  the  quivering  damaged  victim  and 
point  the  moral  to  the  parent.     "This  is  what  comes 
of  your  recklessness,"  we  say.     "Aren't  you  ashamed 
of  it?"     And  after  inscrutable  meditations  the  fond 
parent  usually  answers  us  by  sending  out  the  child  to 
beg  or  sell  matches  or  by  some  equally  effective  retort. 
Now  a  great  number  of  excellent  people  pretend 
that  this  is  a  dilemma.     'Take  the  child  away,"  it  is 
argued,  "and  you  remove  one  of  the  chief  obstacles 
to  the  reckless  reproduction  of  the  unfit.     Leave  it  in 
the  parents'  hands  and  you  must  have  the  cruelty." 
But  really  this  is  not  a  dilemma  at  all.     There  is  a 
quite  excellent  middle  way.     It  may  not  be  within  the 
sphere  of  practical  politics  at  present — if  not,   it  is 
work  for  the  New  Republic  to  get  it  there — but  it 
would  practically  settle  all  this  problem  of  neglected 
children.     This  way  is  simply  to  make  the  parent  the 
debtor  to  society  on  account  of  the  child  for  adequate 


94  Mankind  in  the  Making 

food,  clothing,  and  care  for  at  least  the  first  twelve  or 
thirteen  years  of  life,  and  in  the  event  of  parental  de- 
fault to  invest  the  local  authority  with  exceptional 
powers  of  recovery  in  this  matter.  It  w^ould  be  quite 
easy  to  set  up  a  minimum  standard  of  clothing,  cleanli- 
ness, growth,  nutrition  and  education,  and  provide, 
that  if  that  standard  was  not  maintained  by  a  child, 
or  if  the  child  was  found  to  be  bruised  or  maimed 
without  the  parents  being  able  to  account  for  these 
injuries,  the  child  should  be  at  once  removed  from  the 
parental  care,  and  the  parents  charged  with  the  cost 
of  a  suitable  maintenance — which  need  not  be  exces- 
sively cheap.  If  the  parents  failed  in  the  payments 
they  could  be  put  into  celibate  labour  establishments  to 
work  off  as  much  of  the  debt  as  they  could,  and  they 
would  not  be  released  until  their  debt  was  fully  dis- 
charged. Legislation  of  this  type  would  not  only  se- 
cure all  and  more  of  the  advantages  children  of  the 
least  desirable  sort  now  get  from  charities  and  public 
institutions,  but  it  would  certainly  invest  parentage 
with  a  quite  unprecedented  gravity  for  the  reckless, 
and  it  would  enormously  reduce  the  number  of  births 
of  the  least  desirable  sort.  Into  this  net,  for  example, 
every  habitual  drunkard  who  was  a  parent  would,  for 
his  own  good  and  the  world's,  be  almost  certain  to 
fall.i 

>  Mr.  C.  G.  Stuart  Menteath  has  favored  me  with  some  valuable 
comments  upon  this  point.  He  writes:  "I  agree  that  calling  such 
persons  as  have  shown  themselves  incapable  of  parental  duties  debtors 
to  the  State,  would  help  to  reconcile  popular  ideas  of  the  '  liberty  of  the 


JVholesale  Aspects  of  Man-making     95 

So  much  for  the  worst  fringe  of  this  question,  the 
maltreated  children,  the  children  of  the  slum,  the  chil- 
dren of  drunkards  and  criminals,  and  the  illegitimate. 
But  the  bulk  of  the  children  of  deficient  growth,  the 
bulk  of  the  excessive  mortality,  lies  above  the  level  of 
such  intervention,  and  the  method  of  attack  of  the  New 
Republican  must  be  less  direct.  Happily  there  already 
exists  a  complicated  mass  of  legislation  that  without 
any  essential  change  of  principle  could  be  applied  to 
this  object. 

The  first  of  the  expedients  which  would  lead  to  a 
permanent  improvement  in  these  matters  is  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  minimum  of  soundness  and  sanitary  con- 
venience in  houses,  below  which  standard  it  shall  be 
illegal  to  inhabit  a  house  at  all.  There  should  be  a 
certain  relation  between  the  size  of  rooms  and  their 
ventilating  appliances,  a  certain  minimum  of  lighting, 
certain  conditions  of  open  space  about  the  house  and 
sane  rules  about   foundations  and  materials.     These 

subject'  with  the  enforcement  as  well  as  the  passing  of  such  laws.  But 
the  notions  of  drastically  enforcing  parental  duties,  and  of  discouraging 
and  even  prohibiting  the  marriages  of  those  unable  to  show  their  ability 
to  perform  these  duties,  has  long  prevailed.  See  NichoU's  HiTtory  of 
the  Poor  Law  (1898,  New  Edition),  i.  229,  and  ii.  140,  278,  where  you 
will  find  chargeable  bastardy  has  been  punishable  in  the  first  offence 
by  one  year's  imprisonment,  and  in  the  second,  by  imprisonment  until 
sureties  are  given,  which  thus  might  amount  to  imprisonment  for  life. 
See  also,  J.  S.  Mill,  Political  Economy,  Bk.  II.,  ch.  ii.,  for  extreme  legis- 
lation on  the  Continent  against  the  marriage  of  people  unable  to  support 
a  family.  In  Denmark  there  seem  to  be  very  severe  laws  impeding  the 
marriage  of  those  who  have  been  paupers.  The  English  law  was  suffi- 
ciently effective  to  produce  infanticide,  so  that  a  law  was  passed  making 
concealment  of  birth  almost  infanticide." 


96  Mankind  in  the  Making 

regulations  would  vary  with  the  local  density  of  popu- 
lation— many  things  are  permissible  in  Romney 
marsh,  for  example,  which  the  south-west  wind  sweeps 
everlastingly,  that  would  be  deadly  in  Rotherhithe. 
At  present  in  England  there  are  local  building  regula- 
tions, for  the  most  part  vexatious  and  stupid  to  an 
almost  incredible  degree,  and  compiled  without  either 
imagination  or  understanding,  but  it  should  be  possi- 
ble to  substitute  for  these  a  national  minimum  of 
habitability  without  any  violent  revolution.  A  house 
that  failed  to  come  up  to  this  minimum — which  might 
begin  very  low  and  be  raised  at  intervals  of  years — 
would,  after  due  notice,  be  pulled  down.  It  might  be 
pulled  down  and  the  site  taken  over  and  managed  by 
the  local  authority — allowing  its  owner  a  portion  of  its 
value  in  compensation — if  it  was  evident  his  failure 
to  keep  up  to  the  standard  had  an  adequate  excuse. 
In  time  it  might  be  possible  to  level  up  the  minimum 
standard  of  all  tenements  in  towns  and  urban  districts 
at  any  rate  to  the  possession  of  a  properly  equipped 
bathroom  for  example,  without  which,  for  hardwork- 
ing people,  regular  cleanliness  is  a  practical  impossi- 
bility. This  process  of  levelling-up  the  minimum 
tenement  would  be  enormously  aided  by  a  philan- 
thropic society  which  would  devote  itself  to  the  study 
of  building  methods  and  materials,  to  the  evolution  of 
conveniences,  and  the  direction  of  invention  to  lessen- 
ing the  cost  and  complication  of  building  wholesome 
dwellings. 

The  state  of  repair  of  inhabited  buildings  is  also 


Wholesale  Aspects  of  Man-making    ()^ 

already  a  matter  of  public  concern.  All  that  is  needed 
is  a  slow,  persistent  tightening-up  of  the  standard. 
This  would  ensure,  at  any  rate,  that  the  outer  shell  of 
the  child's  surroundings  gave  it  a  fair  chance  in  life. 
In  the  next  place  comes  legislation  against  over- 
crowding. There  must  be  a  maximum  number  of  in- 
habitants to  any  tenement,  and  a  really  sane  law  will 
be  far  more  stringent  to  secure  space  and  air  for 
young  children  than  for  adults.  There  is  little  reason, 
except  the  possible  harbouring  of  parasites  and  infec- 
tious disease,  why  five  or  six  adults  should  not  share 
a  cask  on  a  dust  heap  as  a  domicile — if  it  pleases  them. 
But  directly  children  come  in  we  touch  the  future. 
The  minimum  permissible  tenement  for  a  maximum 
of  two  adults  and  a  very  young  child  is  one  properly 
ventilated  room  capable  of  being  heated,  with  close 
and  easy  access  to  sanitary  conveniences,  a  constant 
supply  of  water  and  easy  means  of  getting  warm 
water.  More  than  one  child  should  mean  another 
room,  and  it  seems  only  reasonable  if  we  go  so  far 
as  this,  to  go  further  and  require  a  minimum  of  furni- 
ture and  equipment,  a  fire-guard,  for  instance,^  and  a 

'  I  am  greatly  obliged  to  Mr.  J.  Leaver  for  a  copy  of  the  following 
notice: 

"DEATHS  OF  CHILDREN   FROM  BURNING. 
"To  Parents  and  Guardians. 

"Attention  is  drawn  to  the  frequency  with  which  the  death  of  young 
children  is  caused  owing  to  their  clothing  taking  fire  at  unprotected  fire- 
grates. During  the  years  1899  and  1900  inquests  were  held  on  the 
bodies  of 


98  Mankind  in  the  Making 

separate  bed  or  cot  for  the  child.  In  a  civihzed  com- 
munity Httle  children  should  not  sleep  with  adults,  and 
the  killing  of  children  by  ''accidental"  overlaying 
should  be  a  punishable  offence.^  If  a  woman  does  not 
wish  to  be  dealt  with  as  a  half-hearted  murderess  she 
should  not  behave  like  one.  It  should  also  be  punish- 
able on  the  part  of  a  mother  to  leave  children  below  a 
certain  age  alone  for  longer  than  a  certain  interval. 
It  is  absurd  to  punish  people  as  we  do,  for  the  injuries 
inflicted  by  them  upon  their  children  during  uncon- 
trollable anger,  and  not  to  punish  them  for  the  injuries 
inflicted  by  uncontrolled  carelessness.  Such  legisla- 
tion should  ensure  children  space,  air  and  attention.- 

1684  YOUNG  CHILDREN 
whose  death  had  resulted  from  burning,  and  in  1425  of  these  cases  the 
fire  by  which  the  burning  was  caused  was  unprotected  by  a  guard. 

"With  a  view  to  prevent  such  deplorable  loss  of  life  it  is  suggested  to 
Parents  and  Guardians,  who  have  the  care  of  young  children,  that  it  is 
very  desirable  that  efl&cient  fire-guards  should  be  provided,  in  order  to 
render  it  impossible  for  children  to  obtain  access  to  the  fire-grates. 

"E.  R.  C.  BRADFORD, 
"The  Commissioner  of  Police  of  the  Metropolis. 
"Metropolitan  Police  Office, 
"New  Scotland  Yard, 

"January  28th,  1902." 
>  In  the  returns  I  have  quoted  from  Blackburn,  Leicester,  and  Preston 
the  number  of  deaths  from  suffocation  per  100,000  infants  born  was  232 
in  the  first  year  of  life. 

'  It  is  less  within  the  range  of  commonly  grasped  ideas,  it  is  therefore 
less  within  the  range  of  practical  expedients,  to  point  out  that  a  graduated 
scale  of  building  regulation  might  be  contrived  for  use  in  different  local- 
ities. Districts  could  be  classed  in  grades  determined  by  the  position 
of  each  district  in  the  scale  of  infant  mortality,  and  in  those  in  which 
the  rate  was  highest  the  hygienic  standard  could  be  made  most  stringent 
and  onerous  upon  the  house  owner.     This  would  force  up  the  price  of 


JVholesale  Aspects  of  Man-making    99 

But  it  will  be  urged  that  these  things  are  likely  to 
bear  rather  severely  on  the  very  poor  parent.  To 
which  a  growing  number  of  people  will  reply  that  the 

house-room,  and  that  would  force  up  the  price  of  labour,  and  this  would 
give  the  proprietors  of  unwholesome  industries  a  personal  interest  in 
hygienic  conditions  about  them.     It  would  also  tend  to  force  population 
out  of  districts  intrinsically  unhealthy  into  districts  intrinsically  healthy. 
The  statistics  of  low-grade  districts  could  be  examined  to  discover  the 
distinctive  diseases  which  determine  their  lowness  of  grade,  and  if  these 
were  preventable  diseases  they  could  be  controlled  by  special  regulations. 
A  further  extension  of  these  principles  might  be  made.     Direct  induce- 
ments  to   attract   the   high   birth-rates   towards  exceptionally  healthy 
districts  could  be  contrived  by  a  differential  rating  of  sound  families 
with  children  in  such  districts,  the  burthen  of  heavy  rates  could  be 
thrown  upon  silly  and  selfish  landowners  who  attempted  to  stifle  sound 
populations  by  using  highly  habitable  areas  as  golf  links,  private  parks, 
game  preserves,  and  the  like,  and  public-spirited  people  could  combine 
to  facilitate  communications  that  would  render  life  in  such  districts 
compatible  with  industrial  occupation.     Such  deliberate  redistribution 
of  population  as  this  differential  treatment  of  districts  involves,  is,  how- 
ever, quite  beyond  the  available  power  and  intelligence  of  our  public 
control  at  present,  and  I  suggest  it  here  as  something  that  our  grand- 
children perhaps  may  begin  to  consider.     But  if  in  the  obscurity  of 
this  footnote  I  may  let  myself  go,  I  would  point  out  that,  in  the  future, 
a  time  may  come  when  locomotion  will  be  so  swift  and  convenient  and 
cheap  that  it  will  be  unnecessary  to  spread  out  the  homes  of  our  great 
communities   where   the   industrial   and   trading   centres   are   gathered 
together;  it  will  be  unnecessary  for  each  district  to  sustain  the  renewal 
and  increase  of  its  own  population.     Certain  wide  regions  will  become 
specifically  administrative    and    central — the  home  lands,  the  mother 
lands,  the  centres  of  education  and  population,  and  others  will  become 
specifically  fields  of  action.     Something  of  this  kind  is  to  a  slight  degree 
already  the  case  with  Scotland,  which  sends  out  its  hardy  and  capable 
sons  wherever  the  worid  has  need  of  them;  the  Sv^-iss  mountains,  too, 
send  their  sons  far  and  wide  in  the  worid;  and  on  the  other  hand,  with 
regard  to  certain  elements  of  population,  at  any  rate,  London  and  the 
Gold  Coast  and,  I  suspect,  some  regions  in  the  United  States  of  America, 
receive  to  consume. 


loo  Mankind  in  the  Making 

parent  should  not  be  a  parent  under  circumstances  that 
do  not  offer  a  fair  prospect  of  sound  child-birth  and 
nurture.  It  is  no  good  trying  to  eat  our  cake  and 
have  it ;  if  the  parent  does  not  suffer  the  child  will,  and 
of  the  two,  we,  of  the  New  Republic,  have  no  doubt 
that  the  child  is  the  more  important  thing. 

It  may  be  objected,  however,  that  existing  economic 
conditions  make  life  very  uncertain  for  many  very 
sound  and  wholesome  kinds  of  people,  and  that  it  is 
oppressive  and  likely  to  rob  the  State  of  good  citizens 
to  render  parentage  burthensome,  and  to  surround  it 
with  penalties.  But  that  directs  our  attention  to  a 
second  scheme  of  expedients  which  have  crystallized 
about  the  expression,  the  Minimum  Wage.  The  car- 
dinal idea  of  this  group  of  expedients  is  this,  that  it  is 
unjust  and  cruel  in  the  present  and  detrimental  to  the 
future  of  the  world  to  let  any  one  be  fully  employed  at 
a  rate  of  payment  at  which  a  wholesome,  healthy,  and, 
by  the  standards  of  comfort  at  the  time,  a  reasonable 
happy  life  is  impossible.  It  is  better  in  the  long  run 
that  people  whose  character  and  capacity  will  not  ren- 
der it  zvorth  zvhile  to  employ  them  at  the  Minimiun 
Wage  should  not  he  employed  at  all.  The  sweated 
employment  of  such  people,  as  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Sidney 
Webb  show  most  conclusively  in  their  great  work, 
"Industrial  Democracy,"  arrests  the  development  of 
labour-saving  machinery,  replaces  and  throws  out  of 
employment  superior  and  socially  more  valuable 
labour,  enables  these  half  capables  to  establish  base 
families    of    inadequately    fed    and    tended    children 


Wholesale  Aspects  of  Man-making  i  o  i 

(which  presently  collapse  upon  pubhc  and  private 
charity),  and  so  lowers  and  keeps  down  the  national 
standard  of  life.  As  these  writers  show  very  clearly, 
an  industry  that  cannot  adequately  sustain  sound 
workers  is  not  in  reality  a  source  of  public  wealth  at 
all,  but  a  disease  and  a  parasite  upon  the  public  body. 
It  is  eating  up  citizens  the  State  has  had  the  expense 
of  educating,  and  very  often  the  indirect  cost  of  rear- 
ing. Obviously  the  minimum  wage  for  a  civilized 
adult  male  should  be  sufficient  to  cover  the  rent  of  the 
minimum  tenement  permissible  with  three  or  four  chil- 
dren, the  maintenance  of  himself  and  his  wife  and 
children  above  the  minimum  standard  of  comfort,  his 
insurance  against  premature  or  accidental  death  or 
temporary  economic  or  physical  disablement,  some 
minimum  provision  for  old  age  and  a  certain  margin 
for  the  exercise  of  his  individual  freedom.^ 

So  that  while  those  who  are  bent  on  this  conception 
of  making  economy  in  life  and  suffering  the  guiding 
principle  of  their  public  and  social  activity,  are  seek- 
ing to  brace  up  the  quality  of  the  home  on  the  one 
hand,  they  must  also  do  all  they  can  to  bring  about  the 
realization  of  this  ideal  of  a  minimum  wage  on  the 
other.  In  the  case  of  government  and  public  employ- 
ment and  of  large,  well-organized  industries,  the  way 
is  straight  and  open,  and  the  outlook  very  hopeful. 
Wherever  licenses,  tariffs,  and  any  sort  of  registration 

'  An  excellent  account  of  experiments  already  tried  in  the  establish- 
ment of  a  Minimum  Wage  will  be  found  in  W.  P.  Reeves'  State  Experi- 
ments in  Australia  and  New  Zealand,  vol.  ii.,  p.  47  et  seq. 


102  Mankind  in  the  Making 

occurs  there  are  practicable  means  of  bringing  in  this 
expedient.  But  where  the  employment  is  shifting 
and  sporadic,  or  free  from  regulation,  there  we  have 
a  rent  in  our  social  sieve,  and  the  submissive,  eager 
inferior  will  still  come  in,  the  failures  of  our  own  race, 
the  immigrant  from  baser  lands,  desperately  and  dis- 
astrously underselling  our  sound  citizens.  Obviously 
we  must  use  every  contrivance  we  can  to  mend  these 
rents,  by  promoting  the  organization  of  employments 
in  any  way  that  will  not  hamper  progress  in  economic 
production.  And  if  we  can  persuade  the  Trade 
Unions — and  there  is  every  sign  that  the  old  mediaeval 
guild  conception  of  water-tight  trade  limitations  is 
losing  its  hold  upon  those  organizations — to  facilitate 
the  movement  of  workers  from  trade  to  trade  under 
the  shifting  stress  of  changing  employment  and  of 
changing  economy  of  production,  we  shall  have  gone 
far  to  bring  the  possibilities  of  the  rising  operative  up 
to  the  standard  of  the  minimum  home  permissible  for 
children. 

These  things — if  we  could  bring  them  about — would 
leave  us  with  a  sort  of  clarified  Problem  of  the  Unem- 
ployed on  our  hands.  Our  Minimum  Wage  would 
have  strained  these  people  out,  and,  provided  there 
existed  what  is  already  growing  up,  an  intelligent  sys- 
tem of  employment  bureaus,  we  should  have  much 
more  reason  to  conclude  than  we  have  at  present,  that 
they  were  mainly  unemployed  because  of  a  real  inca- 
pacity in  character,  strength,  or  intelligence  for  effi- 
cient citizenship.     Our  raised  standards  of  housing, 


Wholesale  Aspects  of  Man-making  103 

our  persecution  of  overcrowding,  and  our  obstruction 
of  employment  below  the  minimum  wage,  would  have 
swept  out  the  rookeries  and  hiding-places  of  these  peo- 
ple of  the  Abyss.  They  would  exist,  but  they  would 
not  multiply — and  that  is  our  supreme  end.  They 
would  be  tramping  on  roads  where  mendicity  laws 
would  prevail,  there  would  be  no  house-room  for  them, 
no  squatting-places.  The  casual  wards  would  catch 
them  and  register  them,  and  telephone  one  to  the  other 
about  them.  It  is  rare  that  children  come  into  this 
world  without  a  parent  or  so  being  traceable.  Every- 
thing would  converge  to  convince  these  people  that  to 
bear  children  into  such  an  unfavourable  atmosphere  is 
an  extremely  inconvenient  and  undesirable  thing. 
They  would  not  have  many  children,  and  such  children 
as  they  had  would  fall  easily  into  our  organized  net 
and  get  the  protection  of  the  criticised  and  improved 
development  of  the  existing  charitable  institutions.^ 
This  is  the  best  we  can  do  for  those  poor  little  crea- 
tures. As  for  that  increasing  section  of  the  Abyss 
that  will  contrive  to  live  childless,  these  papers  have 
no  quarrel  with  them.  A  childless  wastrel  is  a  ter- 
minating evil,  and  it  may  be,  a  picturesque  evil.  I 
must  confess  that  a  lazy  rogue  is  very  much  to  my 
taste,  provided  there  is  no  tragedy  of  children  to  smear 

'"I  wonder  whether  there  is  any  legal  flaw  in  the  second  section  of 
the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Children  Act  of  1894,  which  may  have 
been  specially  aimed  at  beggars  with  offspring.  It  is  specially  punish- 
able to  beg  having  an  infant  in  their  arms,  quite  apart  from  teaching 
the  infant  in  question  to  beg.  Or  is  this  law  insufBciently  enforced 
through  popular  apathy?" — C.  G.  Stuart  Menteath. 


I04  Mankind  in  the  Making 

the  joke  with  misery.  And  if  he  or  she  neither  taints 
nor  tempts  the  children,  who  are  our  care,  a  childless 
weakling  we  may  freely  let  our  pity  and  mercy  go  out 
to.  To  go  childless  is  in  them  a  virtue  for  which  they 
merit  our  thanks. 

These  are  the  first  necessities,  then,  in  the  Making 
of  Men  and  the  bettering  of  the  world,  this  courageous 
interference  with  what  so  many  people  call  "Nature's 
methods"  and  "Nature's  laws,"  though,  indeed,  they 
are  no  more  than  the  methods  and  laws  of  the  beasts. 
By  such  expedients  we  may  hope  to  see,  first,  a  certain 
fall  in  the  birth-rate,  a  fall  chiefly  in  the  birth-rate  of 
improvident,  vicious,  and  feeble  types,  a  continuation, 
in  fact,  of  that  fall  that  is  already  so  conspicuous  in 
illegitimate  births  in  Great  Britain;  secondly,  a  cer- 
tain, almost  certainly  more  considerable  fall  in  the 
death-rate  of  infants  and  young  children,  and  that  fall 
in  the  infantile  death-rate  will  serve  to  indicate, 
thirdly,  a  fall  no  statistics  will  fully  demonstrate  in  what 
I  may  call  the  partial  death-rate,  the  dwarfing  and 
limiting  of  that  innumerable  host  of  children  who  do, 
in  an  underfed,  meagre  sort  of  a  way,  survive.  This 
raising  of  the  standard  of  homes  will  do  a  work  that 
will  not  end  with  the  children;  the  death-line  will  sag 
downward  for  all  the  first  twenty  or  thirty  years  of 
life.  Dull-minded,  indolent,  prosperous  people  will 
say  that  all  this  is  no  more  than  a  proposal  to  make 
man  better  by  machinery,  that  you  cannot  reform  the 
world  by  Board  of  Trade  Regulations  and  all  the  rest 
of  it.     They  will  say  that  such  work  as  this  is  a 


IVholesale  Aspects  of  Man-making  105 

scheme  of  grim  materialism,  and  that  the  Soul  of  Man 
gains  no  benefit  by  this  "so-called  Progress,"  that  it  is 
not  birth-rates  that  want  raising  but  Ideals.  We  shall 
deal  later  with  Ideals  in  general.  Here  I  will  mention 
only  one,  and  that  is,  unhappily,  only  an  Ideal  Argu- 
ment. I  wish  I  could  get  together  all  these  people 
who  are  so  scornful  of  materialistic  things,  out  of  the 
excessively  comfortable  houses  they  inhabit,  and  I 
wish  I  could  concentrate  them  in  a  good  typical  East 
London  slum — five  or  six  together  in  each  room,  one 
lodging  with  another,  and  I  wish  I  could  leave  them 
there  to  demonstrate  the  superiority  of  high  ideals  to 
purely  material  considerations  for  the  rest  of  their 
earthly  career  .  .  .  while  we  others  went  on  with 
our  sordid  work  unencumbered  by  their  ideality. 

Think  what  these  dry-looking  projects  of  building 
and  trade  regulation,  and  inspection  and  sanitation, 
mean  in  reality !  think  of  the  promise  they  hold  out  to 
us  of  tears  and  suffering  abolished,  of  lives  invigorated 
and  enlarged ! 


IV 

The  Beginnings  of  the  Mind  and  Language 

§  I 

The  newborn  child  is  at  first  no  more  than  an  ani- 
mal. Indeed,  it  is  among  the  lowest  and  most  helpless 
of  all  animals,  a  mere  vegetative  lump;  assimilation 
incarnate — wailing.  It  is  for  the  first  day  in  its  life 
deaf,  it  squints  blindly  at  the  world,  its  limbs  are  be- 
yond its  control,  its  hands  clutch  drowningly  at  any- 
thing whatever  that  drifts  upon  this  vast  sea  of  being 
into  which  it  has  plunged  so  amazingly.  And  imper- 
ceptibly, subtly,  so  subtly  that  never  at  any  time  can 
we  mark  with  certainty  the  increment  of  its  coming, 
there  creeps  into  this  soft  and  claimant  little  creature 
a  mind,  a  will,  a  personality,  the  beginning  of  all  that 
is  real  and  spiritual  in  man.  In  a  little  while  there 
are  eyes  full  of  interest  and  clutching  hands  full  of 
purpose,  smiles  and  frowns,  the  babbling  beginning 
of  expression  and  affections  and  aversions.  Before  the 
first  year  is  out  there  is  obedience  and  rebellion,  choice 
and  self-control,  speech  has  commenced,  and  the  strug- 
gle of  the  newcomer  to  stand  on  his  feet  in  this  world 
of  men.  The  process  is  unanalyzable ;  given  a  certain 
measure  of  care  and  protection,  these  things  come  spon- 

io6 


Beginnings  of  Mind  and  Language     107 

taneously;  with  the  merest  rough  encouragement  of 
things  and  voices  about  the  child,  they  are  evoked. 

But  every  day  the  inherent  impulse  makes  a  larger 
demand  upon  the  surroundings  of  the  child,  if  it  is  to 
do  its  best  and  fullest.  Obviously,  quite  apart  from 
physical  consequences,  the  environment  of  a  little  child 
may  be  good  or  bad,  better  or  worse  for  it  in  a  thou- 
sand different  ways.  It  may  be  distracting  or  over- 
stimulating,  it  may  evoke  and  increase  fear,  it  may  be 
drab  and  dull  and  depressing,  it  may  be  stupefying,  it 
may  be  misleading  and  productive  of  vicious  habits  of 
mind.  And  our  business  is  to  find  just  what  is  the 
best  possible  environment,  the  one  that  will  give  the 
soundest  and  fullest  growth,  not  only  of  body  but  of 
intelligence. 

Now  from  the  very  earliest  phase  the  infant  stands 
in  need  of  a  succession  of  interesting  things.  At  first 
these  are  mere  vague  sense  impressions,  but  in  a 
month  or  so  there  is  a  distinct  looking  at  objects; 
presently  follows  reaching  and  clutching,  and  soon  the 
little  creature  is  urgent  for  fresh  things  to  see,  handle, 
hear,  fresh  experiences  of  all  sorts,  fresh  combinations 
of  things  already  known.  The  newborn  mind  is  soon 
as  hungry  as  the  body.  And  if  a  healthy  well-fed  child 
cries,  it  is  probably  by  reason  of  this  unsatisfied  hun- 
ger, it  lacks  an  interest,  it  is  bored,  that  dismal  vacant 
suffering  that  punishes  the  failure  of  living  things  to 
live  fully  and  completely.  As  Mr.  Charles  Booth  has 
pointed  out  in  his  Life  and  Labour  of  the  People,  it 
is  probable  that  in  this  respect  the  children  of  the  rela- 


io8  Mankind  in  the  Making 

lively  poor  are  least  at  a  disadvantage.  The  very 
poor  infant  passes  its  life  in  the  family  room,  there 
is  a  going  and  coming,  and  interesting  activity  of 
domestic  work  on  the  part  of  its  mother,  the  prepara- 
tion of  meals,  the  intermittent  presence  of  the  father, 
the  whole  gamut  of  its  mother's  unsophisticated  tem- 
per. It  is  carried  into  crowded  and  eventful  streets  at 
all  hours.  It  participates  in  pothouse  soirees  and 
assists  at  the  business  of  shopping.  It  may  not  lead 
a  very  hygienic  life,  but  it  does  not  lead  a  dull  one. 
Contrast  with  its  lot  that  of  the  lonely  child  of  some 
woman  of  fashion,  leading  its  beautifully  non-bacterial 
life  in  a  carefully  secluded  nursery  under  the  control 
of  a  virtuous,  punctual,  invariable,  conscientious  rather 
than  emotional  nurse.  The  poor  little  soul  wails  as 
often  for  events  as  the  slum  baby  does  for  nourish- 
ment. Into  its  grey  nursery  there  rushes  every  day, 
or  every  other  day,  a  breathless,  preoccupied,  exces- 
sively dressed,  cleverish,  many-sided,  fundamentally 
silly,  and  universally  incapable  woman,  vociferates  a 
little  conventional  affection,  slaps  a  kiss  or  so  upon 
her  offspring,  and  goes  off  again  to  collect  that  daily 
meed  of  admiration  and  cheap  envy  which  is  the  gusto 
of  her  world.  After  that  gushing,  rustling,  incom- 
prehensible passage,  the  child  relapses  into  the  boring 
care  of  its  bored  hireling  for  another  day.  The  nurse 
writes  her  letters,  mends  her  clothes,  reads  and  thinks 
of  the  natural  interests  of  her  own  life,  and  the  child 
is  "good"  just  in  proportion  to  the  extent  to  which  it 
doesn't  "worry." 


Beginnings  of  Mind  and  Language     109 

That,  of  course,  is  an  extreme  case.     It  assumes  a 
particularly  bad  mother  and  a  particularly  ill-chosen 
nurse,  and  what  is  probably  only  a  transitory  phase  of 
sexual  debasement.     The  average  nurse  of  the  upper- 
class   child   is   often   a   woman   of   highly   developed 
motherly  instincts,  and  it  is  probable  that  our  upper 
class  and  our  upper  middle-class  is  passing  or  has 
already  passed  through  that  phase  of  thought  which 
has   made   solitary   children   so   common   in   the   last 
decade  or  so.    The  efifective  contrast  must  not  take  us 
too  far.     We  must  remember  that  all  women  do  not 
possess  the  passion   for  nursing,   and   that   some  of 
those  who  are  defective  in  this  direction  may  be,  for 
all  that,  women  of  exceptional  gifts  and  capacity,'  and 
fully  capable  of  offspring.     Civilization  is  based  on 
the  organized  subdivision  of  labour,  and,  as  the  able 
lady  who  writes  as  "L'amie  Inconnue"  in  the  County 
Gentleman  has  pointed  out  in  a  very  helpful  criticism 
of  the  original  version  of  this  paper,  it  is  as  absurd  to 
require  every  woman  to  be  a  nursery  mother  as  it  is 
to  require  every  man  to  till  the  soil.     We  move  from 
homogeneous    to    heterogeneous    conditions,    and    we 
must  beware  of  every  generalization  we  make. 

For  all  that,  one  is  inclined  to  think  the  ideal 
average  environment  should  contain  the  almost  con- 
stant presence  of  the  mother,  for  no  one  is  so  likely 
to  be  continuously  various  and  interesting  and  un- 
tiring as  she,  and  only  as  an  exception,  for  excep- 
tional mothers  and  nurses,  can  we  admit  the  mother- 
substitute.      When    we   admit    her    we    admit    other 


I  lo  Mankind  in  the  Making 

things.  It  is  entirely  on  account  of  such  an  ideal 
environment,  we  must  remember,  that  monogamy 
finds  its  practical  sanction ;  it  claims  to  ensure  the  pre- 
siding mother  the  maximum  of  security  and  self- 
respect.  A  woman  who  enjoys  the  full  rights  of  a 
wife  to  maintenance  and  exclusive  attention,  without 
a  complete  discharge  of  the  duties  of  motherhood, 
profits  by  the  imputation  of  things  she  has  failed  to 
perform.  She  may  be  justified  by  other  things,  by 
an  effectual  co-operation  with  her  husband  in  joint 
labours  for  example,  but  she  has  altered  her  footing 
none  the  less.  To  secure  an  ideal  environment  for 
children  in  as  many  cases  as  possible  is  the  second 
of  the  two  great  practical  ends — the  first  being  sound 
births,  for  which  the  restrictions  of  sexual  morality 
exist.  In  addition  there  is  the  third  almost  equally 
important  matter  of  adult  efficiency ;  we  have  to  adjust 
affairs,  if  we  can,  to  secure  the  maximum  of  health, 
sane  happiness  and  vigorous  mental  and  physical 
activity,  and  to  abolish,  as  far  as  possible,  passionate 
broodings,  over-stimulated  appetites,  disease,  and  de- 
structive indulgence.  Apart  from  these  aspects,  sexual 
morality  is  outside  the  scope  of  the  New  Republican 
altogether.  ...  Do  not  let  this  passage  be  mis- 
understood. I  do  not  mean  that  a  New  Republican 
ignores  sexual  morality  except  on  these  grounds,  but 
so  far  as  his  New  Republicanism  goes  he  does,  just 
as  a  member  of  the  Aeronautical  Society,  so  far  as  his 
aeronautical  interests  go,  or  as  an  ecclesiastical  archi- 
tect, so  far  as  his  architecture  goes. 


Beginnings  of  Mind  and  Language     1 1 1 

The  ideal  environment  sliould,  without  any  doubt 
a    aJl    centre  about  a  „ursery_a  clean,  airy,  brightly 
ht,  bnlhantly  adorned  room,  into  which  there  should 
be  a  frequent  coming  and  going  of  things  and  people: 
but  from  the  tmre  the  child  begins  to  recognize  object 
and  md,viduals  ,t  should  be  taken  for  little  spells  into 
other    rooms    and    different    surroundings.      In    the 
homely   convenient,  servantless  abode  over  which  the 
aWe-bodied,  capable,  skilful,  civilized  women  of  the 
ordmary  sort  will  preside  in  the  future,  the  child  will 
naturally  follow  its  mother's  morning  activities  from 
room  to  room.    Its  mother  will  talk  to  it,  chance  vis- 
itors will  s>gn  to  it.    There  should  be  a  public  or  pri- 

Tj  !"  '™"f "  ^''"'  "'  perambulator  could 
stand  m  fine  weather;  and  its  promenades  should  not 
be  00  much  a  matter  of  routine.  To  go  along  a  road 
v,th  some  traffic  is  better  for  a  child  than  to  go  along 
a  secluded  path  between  hedges;  a  street  corner  is 
better  *an  a  laurel  plantation  as  a  pitch  for  peranl! 

When  a  child  is  five  or  six  months  old  it  will  have 
got  a  certam  use  and  grip  with  its  hands,  and  it  will 
want  to  handle  and  examine  and  test  the  propert  e 
of  as  many  objects  as  it  can.     Gifts  begin      Th  re 
seems  scope  for  a  wiser  selection  in  these  early  gifts 
At  present  ,t  ,s  chiefly  woolly  animals  with  bells  inside 
tl^m   woo  ly  balls,  and  so  forth,  that  reach  the  baby  ! 
hands^    There  is  no  reason  at  all  why  a  child's  atten- 
.on  should  be  so  predominantly  fixed  on  wool.    Th    e 
toys  are  coloured  very  tastefully,  but  as  Preyer  has  ad! 


112  Mankind  in  the  Making 

vanced  strong  reasons  for  supposing  that  the  child's 
discrimination  of  colours  is  extremely  rudimentary 
until  the  second  year  has  begun,  these  tasteful  arrange- 
ments are  simply  an  appeal  to  the  parent.  Light,  dark, 
yellow,  perhaps  red  and  "other  colours"  seem  to  con- 
stitute the  colour  system  of  a  very  young  infant.  It 
is  to  the  parent,  too,  that  the  humorous  and  realistic 
quality  of  the  animal  forms  appeal.  The  parent  does 
the  shopping  and  has  to  be  amused.  The  parent  who 
ought  to  have  a  doll  instead  of  a  child  is  sufficiently 
abundant  in  our  world  to  dominate  the  shops,  and 
there  is  a  vast  traffic  in  facetious  baby  toys,  facetious 
nursery  furniture,  "art"  cushions  and  "quaint"  baby 
clothing,  all  amazingly  delightful  things  for  grown-up 
people.  These  things  are  bought  and  grouped  about 
the  child,  the  child  is  taught  tricks  to  complete  the 
picture,  and  parentage  becomes  a  very  amusing  after- 
noon employment.  So  long  as  convenience  is  not  sac- 
rificed to  the  aesthetic  needs  of  the  nursery,  and  so  long 
as  common  may  compete  with  "art"  toys,  there  is  no 
great  harm  done,  but  it  is  well  to  understand  how 
irrelevant  these  things  are  to  the  real  needs  of  a  child's 
development. 

A  child  of  a  year  or  less  has  neither  knowledge  nor 
imagination  to  see  the  point  of  these  animal  resem- 
blances— much  less  to  appreciate  either  quaintness  or 
prettiness.  That  comes  only  in  the  second  year.  He 
is  much  more  interested  in  the  crumpling  and  tearing 
of  paper,  in  the  crumpling  of  chintz,  and  in  the  taking 
off  and  replacing  of  the  lid  of  a  little  box.     I  think 


Beginnings  of  Mind  and  Language     1 13 

it  would  be  possible  to  devise  a  much  more  entertain- 
ing set  of  toys  for  an  infant  than  is  at  present  pro- 
curable, but,  unhappily,  they  would  not  appeal  to  the 
intelligence  of  the  average  parent.  There  would  be, 
for  example,  one  or  two  little  boxes  of  different  shapes 
and  substances,  with  lids  to  take  off  and  on,  one  or 
two  rubber  things  that  would  bend  and  twist  about 
and  admit  of  chewing,  a  ball  and  a  box  made  of  china, 
a  fluffy,  flexible  thing  like  a  rabbit's  tail,  with  the  ver- 
tebrae replaced  by  cane,  a  velvet-covered  ball,  a  pow- 
der puff,  and  so  on.  They  could  all  be  plainly  and 
vividly  coloured  with  some  non-soluble  inodorous  col- 
our. They  would  be  about  on  the  cot  and  on  the  rug 
where  the  child  was  put  to  kick  and  crawl.  They 
would  have  to  be  too  large  to  swallow,  and  they  would 
all  get  pulled  and  mauled  about  until  they  were  more 
or  less  destroyed.  Some  would  probably  survive  for 
many  years  as  precious  treasures,  as  beloved  objects,  as 
powers  and  symbols  in  the  mysterious  secret  fetichism 
of  childhood — confidants  and  sympathetic  friends. 

§  2 

While  the  child  is  engaged  with  its  first  toys,  and 
with  the  collection  of  rudimentary  sense  impressions, 
it  is  also  developing  a  remarkable  variety  of  noises 
and  babblements  from  which  it  will  presently  dis- 
entangle speech.  Day  by  day  it  will  show  a  stronger 
and  stronger  bias  to  associate  definite  sounds  with 
definite  objects  and  ideas,  a  bias  so  comparatively  pow- 


114  Mankind  in  the  Making 

erful  in  the  mind  of  man  as  to  distinguish  him  from 
all  other  living  creatures.  Other  creatures  may  think, 
may,  in  a  sort  of  concrete  way,  come  almost  inde- 
finably near  reason  (as  Professor  Lloyd  Morgan  in  his 
very  delightful  Animal  Life  and  Intelligence  has 
shown)  ;  but  man  alone  has  in  speech  the  apparatus, 
the  possibility,  at  any  rate,  of  being  a  reasoning  and 
reasonable  creature.  It  is,  of  course,  not  his  only  appa- 
ratus. Men  may  think  out  things  with  drawings,  with 
little  models,  with  signs  and  symbols  upon  paper,  but 
speech  is  the  common  way,  the  high  road,  the  current 
coin  of  thought. 

With  speech  humanity  begins.  With  the  dawn  of 
speech  the  child  ceases  to  be  an  animal  we  cherish, 
and  crosses  the  boundary  into  distinctly  human  inter- 
course. There  begins  in  its  mind  the  development  of 
the  most  wonderful  of  all  conceivable  apparatus,  a 
subtle  and  intricate  keyboard,  that  will  end  at  last 
with  thirty  or  forty  or  fifty  thousand  keys.  This 
queer,  staring,  soft  little  being  in  its  mother's  arms  is 
organizing  something  within  itself,  beside  which  the 
most  wonderful  orchestra  one  can  imagine  is  a  lump 
of  rude  clumsiness.  There  will  come  a  time  when,  at 
the  merest  touch  upon  those  keys,  image  will  follow 
image  and  emotion  develop  into  emotion,  when  the 
whole  creation,  the  deeps  of  space,  the  minutest  beau- 
ties of  the  microscope,  cities,  armies,  passions,  splen- 
dours, sorrows,  will  leap  out  of  darkness  into  the 
conscious  being  of  thought,  when  this  interwoven  net 
of  brief,  small  sounds  will  form  the  centre  of  a  web 


Beginnings  of  Mind  and  Langttage     1 15 

that  will  hold  together  in  its  threads  the  universe,  the 
All,  visible  and  invisible,  material  and  immaterial,  real 
and  imagined,  of  a  human  mind.  And  if  we  are  to 
make  the  best  of  a  child,  it  is  in  no  way  secondary  to 
its  physical  health  and  growth  that  it  should  acquire 
a  great  and  thorough  command  over  speech,  not 
merely  that  it  should  speak,  but,  what  is  far  more 
vital,  that  it  should  understand  swiftly  and  subtly 
things  written  and  said.  Indeed,  this  is  more  than 
any  physical  need.  The  body  is  the  substance  and  the 
implement;  the  mind,  built  and  compact  of  language, 
is  the  man.  All  that  has  gone  before,  all  that  we  have 
discussed  of  sound  birth  and  physical  growth  and  care, 
is  no  more  than  the  making  ready  of  the  soil  for  the 
mind  that  is  to  grow  therein.  As  we  come  to  this  mat- 
ter of  language,  we  come  a  step  hearer  to  the  intimate 
realities  of  our  subject — we  come  to  the  mental  plant 
that  is  to  bear  the  flower  and  the  ripe  fruit  of  the  in- 
dividual life.  The  next  phase  of  our  inquiry,  there- 
fore, is  to  examine  how  we  can  get  this  mental  plant, 
this  foundation  substance,  this  abundant  mastered  lan- 
guage best  developed  in  the  individual,  and  how  far 
we  may  go  to  ensure  this  best  development  for  all 
children  born  into  the  world. 

From  the  ninth  month  onward  the  child  begins 
serious  attempts  to  talk.  In  order  that  it  may  learn 
to  do  this  as  easily  as  possible,  it  requires  to  be  sur- 
rounded by  people  speaking  one  language,  and  speak- 
ing it  with  a  uniform  accent.  Those  who  are  most 
in  the  child's  hearing  should  endeavour  to  speak — even 


ii6  Mankind  in  the  Making 

when  they  are  not  addressing  the  child — deHberately 
and  clearly.  All  authorities  are  agreed  upon  the  mis- 
chievous effect  of  what  is  called  "baby  talk,"  the  use 
of  an  extensive  sham  vocabulary,  a  sort  of  deciduous 
milk  vocabulary  that  will  presently  have  to  be  shed 
again.  Froebel  and  Preyer  join  hands  on  this.  The 
child's  funny  little  perversions  of  speech  are  really  gen- 
uine attempts  to  say  the  right  word,  and  we  simply 
cause  trouble  and  hamper  development  if  we  give  back 
to  the  seeking  mind  its  own  blunders  again.  When  a 
child  wants  to  indicate  milk,  it  wants  to  say  milk,  and 
not  "mooka"  or  "mik,"  and  when  it  wants  to  indicate 
bed,  the  needed  word  is  not  "bedder"  or  "bye-bye," 
but  "bed."  But  we  give  the  little  thing  no  chance  to 
get  on  in  this  way  until  suddenly  one  day  we  discover 
it  is  "time  the  child  spoke  plainly."  Preyer  has 
pointed  out  very  instructively  the  way  in  which  the 
quite  sufficiently  difficult  matter  of  the  use  of  I,  mine, 
me,  my,  you,  yours,  and  your  is  made  still  more  diffi- 
cult by  those  about  the  child  adopting  irregularly  the 
experimental  idioms  it  produces.  When  a  child  says 
to  its  mother,  "Me  go  mome,"  it  is  doing  its  best  to 
speak  English,  and  its  remark  should  be  received  with- 
out worrying  comment;  but  when  a  mother  says  to 
her  child,  "Me  go  mome,"  she  is  simply  wasting  an 
opportunity  of  teaching  her  child  its  mother-tongue. 
One  sympathizes  with  her  all  too  readily,  one  under- 
stands the  sweetness  to  her  of  these  soft,  infantile  mis- 
pronunciations;  but.  indeed,  she  ought  to  understand; 
it  is  her  primary  business  to  know  better  than  her 
feelings  in  this  affair. 


Beginnings  of  Mind  and  Language     1 1 7 

In  learning  to  speak,  the  children  of  the  more  pros- 
perous classes  are  probably  at  a  considerable  advantage 
when  compared  with  their  poorer  fellow  children. 
They  hear  a  clearer  and  more  uniform  intonation  than 
the  blurred,  uncertain  speech  of  our  commonalty,  that 
has  resulted  from  the  reaction  of  the  great  synthetic 
process  of  the  past  century  upon  dialects.  But  this 
natural  advantage  of  the  richer  child  is  discounted  in 
one  of  two  ways :  in  the  first  place  by  the  mother,  in 
the  second  by  the  nurse.  The  mother  in  the  more 
prosperous  classes  is  often  much  more  vain  and  trivial 
than  the  lower-class  woman;  she  looks  to  her  children 
for  amusement,  and  makes  them  contributors  to  her 
"effect,"  and,  by  taking  up  their  quaint  and  pretty  mis- 
pronunciations, and  devising  humorous  additions  to 
their  natural  baby  talk,  she  teaches  them  to  be  much 
greater  babies  than  they  could  ever  possibly  be  them- 
selves. They  specialise  as  charming  babies  until  their 
mother  tires  of  the  pose,  and  then  they  are  thrust  back 
into  the  nursery  to  recover  leeway,  if  they  can,  under 
the  care  of  governess  or  nurse. 

The  second  disadvantage  of  the  upper-class  child 
is  the  foreign  nurse  or  nursery  governess.  There  is  a 
widely  diffused  idea  that  a  child  is  particularly  apt 
to  master  and  retain  languages,  and  people  try  and 
inoculate  with  French  and  German  as  Lord  Herbert 
of  Cherbury  would  have  inoculated  children  with 
antidotes,  for  all  the  ills  their  flesh  was  heir  to — even, 
poor  little  wretches,  to  an  anticipatory  regimen  for 
gout.     The  root  error  of  these  attempts  to  form  in- 


ii8  Mankind  in  the  Making 

fantile  polyglots  is  embodied  in  an  unverified  quota- 
tion from  Byron's  Beppo,  dear  to  pedagogic  wi  iters — 

"Wax  to  receive  and  marble  to  retain" 

runs  the  line — which  the  curious  may  discover  to  be 
a  description  of  the  faithful  lover,  though  it  has  be- 
come as  firmly  associated  with  the  child-mind  as  has 
Sterne's  ''tempering  the  wind  to  the  shorn  lamb"  with 
Holy  Writ.  And  this  idea  of  infantile  receptivity  and 
retentiveness  is  held  by  an  unthinking  world,  in  spite 
of  the  universally  accessible  fact  that  hardly  one  of 
us  can  remember  anything  that  happened  before  the 
age  of  five,  and  very  little  that  happened  before  seven 
or  eight,  and  that  children  of  five  or  six,  removed  into 
foreign  surroundings,  will  in  a  year  or  so — if  special 
measures  are  not  taken — reconstruct  their  idiom,  and 
absolutely  forget  every  word  of  their  mother-tongue. 
This  foreign  nurse  comes  into  the  child's  world,  bring- 
ing with  her  quite  weird  errors  in  the  quantities,  the 
accent  and  idiom  of  the  mother-tongue,  and  greatly 
increasing  the  difficulty  and  delay  on  the  road  to 
thought  and  speech.  And  this  attempt  to  acquire  a 
foreign  language  prematurely  at  the  expense  of  the 
mother-tongue,  to  pick  it  up  cheaply  by  making  the 
nurse  an  informal  teacher  of  languages,  entirely 
ignores  a  fact  upon  which  I  would  lay  the  utmost  stress 
in  this  paper — which,  indeed,  is  the  gist  of  this  paper — 
that  only  a  very  small  minority  of  English  or  Ameri- 
can people  have  more  than  half  mastered  the  splendid 
heritage  of  their  native  speech.    To  this  neglected  and 


Beginnings  of  Mind  and  Language     119 

most  significant  limitation  the  amount  of  public  atten- 
tion given  at  present  is  quite  surprisingly  small. ^ 

There  can  be  little  or  no  dispute  that  the  English 
language  in  its  completeness  presents  a  range  too 
ample  and  appliances  too  subtle  for  the  needs  of  the 
great  majority  of  those  who  profess  to  speak  it.     I 

» My  friend,  Mr.  L.  Cope  Cornford,  writes  apropos  of  this,  and  I 
think  I  cannot  do  better  than  print  what  he  says  as  a  corrective  to  my 
own  assertions:  "All  you  say  on  the  importance  of  letting  a  child  hear 
good  English  cleanly  accented  is  admirable;  but  we  think  you  have  per- 
haps overlooked  the  importance  of  ear-training  as  such,  which  should 
begin  by  the  time  the  child  can  utter  its  first  attempts  at  speech.  By 
ear-training  I  mean  the  differentiation  of  sounds — articulate,  inarticu- 
late, and  musical — fixing  the  child's  attention  and  causing  it  to  imitate. 
As  every  sound  requires  a  particular  movement  of  the  vocal  apparatus, 
the  child  will  soon  be  able  to  adapt  its  apparatus  unconsciously  and  to 
distinguish  accurately.  And  if  it  does  not  so  learn  before  the  age  of  five 
or  six,  it  probably  will  never  do  so.  By  the  age  of  two — or  less — the 
child  should  be  able  to  imitate  exactly  any  speech-sound.  Our  young- 
sters can  do  so;  and,  consequently,  the  fact  that  they  had  a  nurse  with 
a  Sussex  accent  ceased  to  matter,  because  they  learned  to  distinguish 
her  talk  from  correct  English.  So  in  the  case  of  a  foreign  nurse;  the 
result  of  a  foreigner's  influence  would  be  good  in  this  way,  that  it  would 
train  a  child  to  a  new  series  of  speech-sounds,  thus  enlarging  its  ear 
capacity.  Nor  need  it  necessarily  adopt  these  speech-sounds  as  those 
which  it  should  use;  it  merely  knows  them;  and  if  the  foreigner  have 
a  good  accent,  and  speaks  her  own  tongue  well,  the  child's  ear  is  trained 
for  life,  irrespective  0}  expression.  Experience  shows  that  a  child  can 
keep  separate  in  its  mind  two  or  three  languages — at  first  the  speech- 
sounds,  later  the  expression.  Modes  oj  expression  need  not  begin  till 
after  five,  or  later.  With  regard  to  music,  everj'  child  should  begin  to 
undergo  a  simple  course  of  ear-training  on  the  sol-fa  system  as  elaborated 
and  taught  by  McNaught,  because  the  faculty  of  so  learning  is  lost — 
atrophied — by  the  age  of  twelve  or  fourteen.  But,  beginning  early — 
as  early  as  possible — every  child,  'musical'  or  not,  can  be  trained.  Just 
as  every  child,  'artistic'  or  not,  may  be  taught  to  draw  accurately  up 
to  a  certain  point." 


120  Mankind  in  the  Making 

do  not  refer  to  the  half-civilized  and  altogether  bar- 
baric races  who  are  coming  under  its  sway,  but  to  the 
people  we  are  breeding  of  our  own  race — the  bar- 
barians of  our  streets,  our  suburban  "white  niggers," 
with  a  thousand  a  year  and  the  conceit  of  Imperial 
destinies.  They  live  in  our  mother-tongue  as  some 
half-civilized  invaders  might  live  in  a  gigantic  and 
splendidly  equipped  palace.  They  misuse  this,  they 
waste  that,  they  leave  whole  corridors  and  wings  un- 
explored, to  fall  into  disuse  and  decay.  I  doubt  if 
the  ordinary  member  of  the  prosperous  classes  in 
England  has  much  more  than  a  third  of  the  English 
language  in  use,  and  more  than  a  half  in  knowledge, 
and  as  we  go  down  the  social  scale  we  may  come  at 
last  to  strata  having  but  a  tenth  part  of  our  full 
vocabulary,  and  much  of  that  blurred  and  vaguely 
understood.  The  speech  of  the  Colonist  is  even 
poorer  than  the  speech  of  the  home-staying  English. 
In  America,  just  as  in  Great  Britain  and  her  Colonies, 
there  is  the  same  limitation  and  the  same  disuse. 
Partly,  of  course,  this  is  due  to  the  pettiness  of  our 
thought  and  experience,  and  so  far  it  can  only  be 
remedied  by  a  general  intellectual  amplification;  but 
partly  it  is  due  to  the  general  ignorance  of  English 
prevailing  throughout  the  world.  It  is  atrociously 
taught,  and  taught  by  ignorant  men.  It  is  atrociously 
and  meanly  written.  So  far  as  this  second  cause  of 
sheer  ignorance  goes,  the  gaps  in  knowledge  are  con- 
tinually resulting  in  slang  and  the  addition  of  needless 
neologisms  to  the  language.     People  come  upon  ideas 


Beginnings  of  Mind  and  Language     1 2 1 

that  they  know  no  Enghsh  to  express,  and  strike  out 
the  new  phrase  in  a  fine  burst  of  ignorant  discovery. 
There  are  Americans  in  particular  who  are  amazingly 
apt  at  this  sort  of  thing.  They  take  an  enormous  pride 
in  the  jargon  they  are  perpetually  increasing — they 
boast  of  it,  they  give  exhibition  performances  in  it, 
they  seem  to  regard  it  as  the  culminating  flower  of 
their  continental  Republic — as  though  the  Old  World 
had  never  heard  of  shoddy.  But,  indeed,  they  are  in 
no  better  case  than  that  unfortunate  lady  at  Earlswood 
who  esteems  newspapers  stitched  with  unravelled  car- 
pet and  trimmed  with  orange  peel,  the  extreme  of 
human  splendour.  In  truth,  their  pride  is  baseless, 
and  this  slang  of  theirs  no  sort  of  distinction  what- 
ever. Let  me  assure  them  that  in  our  heavier  way  we 
in  this  island  are  just  as  busy  defiling  our  common 
inheritance.  We  can  send  a  team  of  linguists  to 
America  who  will  murder  and  misunderstand  the 
language  against  any  eleven  the  Americans  may  select. 
Of  course  there  is  a  natural  and  necessary  growth 
and  development  in  a  living  language,  a  growth  that 
no  one  may  arrest.  In  appliances,  in  politics,  in  sci- 
ence, in  philosophical  interpretation,  there  is  a  per- 
petual necessity  for  new  words,  words  to  express  new 
ideas  and  new  relationships,  words  free  from  ambiguity 
and  encumbering  associations.  But  the  neologisms  of 
the  street  and  the  saloon  rarely  supply  any  occasion 
of  this  kind.  For  the  most  part  they  are  just  the 
stupid  efforts  of  ignorant  men  to  supply  the  unneces- 
sary.   And  side  by  side  with  the  invention  of  inferior 


122  Mankind  in  the  Making 

cheap  substitutes  for  existing  words  and  phrases,  and 
infinitely  more  serious  than  that  invention,  goes  on  a 
perpetual  misuse  and  distortion  of  those  that  are  in- 
sufficiently known.  These  are  processes  not  of  growth 
but  of  decay — they  distort,  they  render  obsolete,  and 
they  destroy.  The  obsolescence  and  destruction  of 
words  and  phrases  cuts  us  off  from  the  nobility  of 
our  past,  from  the  severed  masses  of  our  race  over- 
seas, far  more  efifectually  than  any  growth  of  neolo- 
giems.  A  language  may  grow — our  language  must 
grow — it  may  be  clarified  and  refined  and  strength- 
ened, but  it  need  not  suffer  the  fate  of  an  algal  fila- 
ment, and  pass  constantly  into  rottenness  and  decay 
whenever  growth  is  no  longer  in  progress.  That  has 
been  the  fate  of  languages  in  the  past  because  of  the 
feebler  organization,  the  slenderer,  slower  intercom- 
munication, and,  above  all,  the  insufficient  records  of 
human  communities ;  but  the  time  has  come  now — or, 
at  the  worst,  is  rapidly  coming — when  this  will  cease 
to  be  a  fated  thing.  We  may  have  a  far  more  copious 
and  varied  tongue  than  had  Addison  or  Spenser — that 
is  no  disaster — but  there  is  no  reason  why  we  should 
not  keep  fast  hold  of  all  they  had.  There  is  no  rea- 
son why  the  whole  fine  tongue  of  Elizabethan  Eng- 
land should  not  be  at  our  disposal  still.  Conceivably 
Addison  would  find  the  rich,  allusive  English  of 
George  Meredith  obscure;  conceivably  we  might  find 
a  thousand  words  and  phrases  of  the  year  2000  strange 
and  perplexing;  but  there  is  no  reason  why  a  time 
should  ever  come  when  what  has  been  written  well  in 


Beginnings  of  Mind  and  Language     1 23 

English  since  Elizabethan  days  should  no  longer  be 
understandable  and  fine. 

The  prevailing  ignorance  of  English  in  the  English- 
speaking  communities,  enormously  hampers  the  devel- 
opment of  the  racial  consciousness.  Except  for  those 
who  wish  to  bawl  the  crudest  thoughts,  there  is  no 
means  of  reaching  the  whole  mass  of  these  commu- 
nities to-day.  So  far  as  material  requirements  go  it 
would  be  possible  to  fling  a  thought  broadcast  like 
seed  over  the  whole  world  to-day,  it  would  be  possible 
to  get  a  book  into  the  hands  of  half  the  adults  of  our 
race.  But  at  the  hands  and  eyes  one  stops — there  is  a 
gap  in  the  brains.  Only  thoughts  that  can  be  ex- 
pressed in  the  meanest  commonplaces  will  ever  reach 
the  minds  of  the  majority  of  the  English-speaking  peo- 
ples under  present  conditions. 

A  writer  who  aims  to  be  widely  read  to-day  must 
perpetually  halt,  must  perpetually  hesitate  at  the  words 
that  arise  in  his  mind ;  he  must  ask  himself  how  many 
people  will  stick  at  this  word  altogether  or  miss  the 
meaning  it  should  carry;  he  must  ransack  his  mem- 
ory for  a  commonplace  periphrase,  an  ingenious  re- 
arrangement of  the  familiar;  he  must  omit  or  over- 
accentuate  at  every  turn.  Such  simple  and  necessary 
words  as  "obsolescent,"  "deliquescent,"  "segregation," 
for  example,  must  be  abandoned  by  the  man  who 
would  write  down  to  the  general  reader;  he  must  use 
"impertinent"  as  if  it  were  a  synonym  for  "impudent" 
and  "indecent"  as  the  equivalent  of  "obscene."  And 
in  the  face  of  this  wide  ignorance  of  English,  seeing 


124  Mankind  in  the  Making 

how  few  people  can  either  read  or  write  Enghsh  with 
any  subtlety,  and  how  disastrously  this  reacts  upon 
the  general  development  of  thought  and  understanding 
amidst  the  English-speaking  peoples,  it  would  be  pre- 
posterous even  if  the  attempt  were  successful,  to  com- 
plicate the  first  linguistic  struggles  of  the  infant  with 
the  beginnings  of  a  second  language.  But  people  deal 
thus  lightly  with  the  mother-tongue  because  they  know 
so  little  of  it  that  they  do  not  even  suspect  their  own 
ignorance  of  its  burthen  and  its  powers.  They  speak 
a  little  set  of  ready-made  phrases,  they  write  it  scarcely 
at  all,  and  all  they  read  is  the  weak  and  shallow  prose 
of  popular  fiction  and  the  daily  press.  That  is  know- 
ing a  language  within  the  meaning  of  their  minds, 
and  such  a  knowledge  a  child  may  very  well  be  left 
to  "pick  up"  as  it  may.  Side  by  side  with  this  they 
will  presently  set  themselves  to  erect  a  similar  "knowl- 
edge" of  two  or  three  other  languages.  One  is  con- 
stantly meeting  not  only  women  but  men  who  will 
solemnly  profess  to  "know"  English  and  Latin, 
French,  German  and  Italian,  perhaps  Greek,  who  are 
in  fact — beyond  the  limited  range  of  food,  clothing, 
shelter,  trade,  crude  nationalism,  social  conventions 
and  personal  vanity — no  better  than  the  deaf  and 
dumb.  In  spite  of  the  fact  that  they  will  sit  with 
books  in  their  hands,  visibly  reading,  turning  pages, 
pencilling  comments,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  they  will 
discuss  authors  and  repeat  criticisms,  it  is  as  hopeless 
to  express  new  thoughts  to  them  as  it  would  be  to 
seek  for  appreciation  in  the  ear  of  a  hippopotamus. 


Beginnings  of  Mind  and  Language     1 25 

Their  linguistic  instruments  are  no  more  capable  of 
contemporary  thought  than  a  tin  whistle,  a  xylophone, 
and  a  drum  are  capable  of  rendering  the  Eroica 
Symphony. 

In  being  also  ignorant  of  itself,  this  wide  ignorance 
of  English  partakes  of  all  that  is  most  hopeless  in 
ignorance.  Except  among  a  few  writers  and  critics, 
there  is  little  sense  of  defect  in  this  matter.  The  com- 
mon man  does  not  know  that  his  limited  vocabulary 
limits  his  thoughts.  He  knows  that  there  are  "long 
words"  and  rare  words  in  the  tongue,  but  he  does  not 
know  that  this  implies  the  existence  of  definite  mean- 
ings beyond  his  mental  range.  His  poor  collection  of 
everyday  words,  worn-out  phrases  and  battered  tropes, 
constitute  what  he  calls  "plain  English,"  and  speech 
beyond  these  limits  he  seriously  believes  to  be  no  more 
than  the  back-slang  of  the  educated  class,  a  mere 
elaboration  and  darkening  of  intercourse  to  secure 
privacy  and  distinction.  No  doubt  there  is  justifica- 
tion enough  for  his  suspicion  in  the  exploits  of  pre- 
tentious and  garrulous  souls.  But  it  is  the  superficial 
justification  of  a  profound  and  disastrous  error.  A  gap 
in  a  man's  vocabulary  is  a  hole  and  tatter  in  his  mind ; 
words  he  has  may  indeed  be  weakly  connected  or 
wrongly  connected — one  may  find  the  whole  key- 
board jerry-built,  for  example,  in  the  English-speaking 
Baboo — but  words  he  has  not  signify  ideas  that  he 
has  no  means  of  clearly  apprehending,  they  are  patches 
of  imperfect  mental  existence,  factors  in  the  total 
amount  of  his  personal  failure  to  live. 


126  Mankind  in  the  Making 

This  world-wide  ignorance  of  English,  this  darkest 
cloud  almost  upon  the  fair  future  of  our  confederated 
peoples,  is  something  more  than  a  passive  ignorance. 
It  is  active,  it  is  aggressive.  In  England  at  any  rate, 
if  one  talks  beyond  the  range  of  white-nigger  English, 
one  commits  a  social  breach.  There  are  countless 
"book  words"  well-bred  people  never  use.  A  writer 
with  any  tenderness  for  half-forgotten  phrases,  any 
disposition  to  sublimate  the  mingling  of  unaccustomed 
words,  runs  as  grave  a  risk  of  organized  disregard  as 
if  he  tampered  with  the  improper.  The  leaden  cen- 
sures of  the  Times,  for  example,  await  any  excursion 
beyond  its  own  battered  circumlocutions.  Even  nowa- 
days, and  when  they  are  veterans,  Mr.  George  Mere- 
dith and  Mr.  Henley  get  ever  and  again  a  screed  of 
abuse  from  some  hot  champion  of  Lower  Division 
Civil  Service  prose.  "Plain  English"  such  a  one  will 
call  his  desideratum,  as  one  might  call  the  viands  on 
a  New  Cut  barrow  "plain  food."  The  hostility  to 
the  complete  language  is  everywhere.  I  wonder  just 
how  many  homes  may  not  be  witnessing  the  self-same 
scene  as  I  write.  Some  little  child  is  struggling  with 
the  unmanageable  treasure  of  a  new-found  word,  has 
produced  it  at  last,  a  nice  long  word,  forthwith  to  be 
"laughed  out"  of  such  foolish  ambitions  by  its  anxious 
parent.  People  train  their  children  not  to  speak  Eng- 
lish beyond  a  threadbare  minimum,  they  resent  it  upon 
platform  and  in  pulpit,  and  they  avoid  it  in  books. 
Schoolmasters  as  a  class  know  little  of  the  language. 
In  none  of  our  schools,  not  even  in  the  more  efficient 


Beginnings  of  Mind  and  Language     1 27 

of  our  elementary  schools,  is  English  adequately 
taught.  .  .  .  And  these  people  expect  the  South 
African  Dutch  to  take  over  their  neglected  tongue! 
As  though  the  poor  partial  King's  English  of  the  Brit- 
ish Colonist  was  one  whit  better  than  the  Taal!  To 
give  them  the  reality  of  what  English  might  be :  that 
were  a  different  matter  altogether. 

These  things  it  is  the  clear  business  of  our  New 
Republicans  to  alter.  It  follows,  indeed,  but  it  is  in 
no  way  secondary  to  the  work  of  securing  sound  births 
and  healthy  childhoods,  that  we  should  secure  a  vig- 
orous, ample  mental  basis  for  the  minds  born  with 
these  bodies.  We  have  to  save,  to  revive  this  scat- 
tered, warped,  tarnished  and  neglected  language  of 
ours,  if  we  wish  to  save  the  future  of  our  world.  We 
should  save  not  only  the  world  of  those  who  at  pres- 
ent speak  English,  but  the  world  of  many  kindred  and 
associated  peoples  who  would  willingly  enter  into  our 
synthesis,  could  we  make  it  wide  enough  and  sane 
enough  and  noble  enough  for  their  honour. 

To  expect  that  so  ample  a  cause  as  this  should  find 
any  support  among  the  festering  confusion  of  the  old 
politics  is  to  expect  too  much.  There  is  no  party  for 
the  English  language  anywhere  in  the  world.  We 
have  to  take  this  problem  as  we  took  our  former  prob- 
lem and  deal  with  it  as  though  the  old  politics,  which 
slough  so  slowly,  were  already  happily  excised.  To 
begin  with,  we  may  give  our  attention  to  the  founda- 
tion of  this  foundation,  to  the  growth  of  speech  in  the 
developing  child. 


128  Mankind  in  the  Making 

From  the  first  the  child  should  hear  a  clear  and  uni- 
form pronunciation  about  it,  a  precise  and  careful  idiom 
and  words  definitely  used.  Since  language  is  to  bring 
people  together  and  not  to  keep  them  apart,  it  would 
be  well  if  throughout  the  English-speaking  world 
there  could  be  one  accent,  one  idiom,  and  one  intona- 
tion. This  there  never  has  been  yet,  but  there  is  no 
reason  at  all  why  it  should  not  be.  There  is  arising 
even  now  a  standard  of  good  English  to  which  many 
dialects  and  many  influences  are  contributing.  From 
the  Highlanders  and  the  Irish,  for  example,  the  Eng- 
lish of  the  South  are  learning  the  possibilities  of  the 
aspirate  h  and  ivh,  which  latter  had  entirely  and  the 
former  very  largely  dropped  out  of  use  among  them  a 
hundred  years  ago.  The  drawling  speech  of  Wessex 
and  New  England — for  the  main  features  of  what  peo- 
ple call  Yankee  intonation  are  to  be  found  in  perfection 
in  the  cottages  of  Hampshire  and  West  Sussex — are 
being  quickened,  perhaps  from  the  same  sources.  The 
Scotch  are  acquiring  the  English  use  of  shall  and  will, 
and  the  confusion  of  reconstruction  is  world-wide 
among  our  vowels.  The  German  w  of  Mr.  Samuel 
Weller  has  been  obliterated  within  the  space  of  a  gen- 
eration or  so.  There  is  no  reason  at  all  why  this  nat- 
ural development  of  the  uniform  English  of  the  com- 
ing age  should  not  be  greatly  forwarded  by  our  delib- 
erate efforts,  why  it  should  not  be  possible  within  a 
little  while  to  define  a  standard  pronunciation  of  our 
tongue.  It  is  a  less  important  issue  by  far  than  that 
of  a  uniform  vocabulary  and  phraseology,  but  it  is  still 
a  very  notable  need. 


Beginnings  of  Mind  and  Language     1 29 

We  have  available  now  for  the  first  time,  in  the  more 
highly  evolved  forms  of  phonograph  and  telephone,  a 
means  of  storing,  analyzing,  transmitting,  and  referring 
to  sounds,  that  should  be  of  very  considerable  value  in 
the  attempt  to  render  a  good  and  beautiful  pronuncia- 
tion of  English  uniform  throughout  the  world.  It 
would  not  be  unreasonable  to  require  from  all  those 
who  are  qualifying  for  the  work  of  education,  the  read- 
ing aloud  of  long  passages  in  the  standard  accent.  At 
present  there  is  no  requirement  of  this  sort  in  Eng- 
land, and  too  often  our  elementary  teachers  at  any  rate, 
instead  of  being  missionaries  of  linguistic  purity,  are 
centres  of  diffusion  for  blurred  and  vicious  perversions 
of  our  speech.  They  must  read  and  recite  aloud  in 
their  qualifying  examinations,  it  is  true,  but  under  no 
specific  prohibition  of  provincial  intonations.  In  the 
pulpit  and  the  stage,  moreover,,  we  have  ready  to  hand 
most  potent  instruments  of  dissemination,  that  need 
nothing  but  a  little  sharpening  to  help  greatly  towards 
this  end.  At  the  entrance  of  almost  all  professions 
nowadays  stands  an  examination  that  includes  English, 
and  there  would  be  nothing  revolutionary  in  adding  to 
that  written  paper  an  oral  test  in  the  standard  pronun- 
ciation. By  active  exertion  to  bring  these  things  about 
the  New  Republican  could  do  much  to  secure  that  every 
child  of  our  English-speaking  people  throughout  the 
world  would  hear  in  school  and  church  and  entertain- 
ment the  same  clear  and  definite  accent.  The  child's 
mother  and  nurse  would  be  helped  to  acquire  almost 
insensibly  a  sound  and  confident  pronunciation.     No 


130  Mankind  in  the  Making 

observant  man  who  has  Hved  at  all  broadly,  meeting 
and  talking  with  people  of  diverse  culture  and  tradi- 
tion, but  knows  how  much  our  intercourse  is  cumbered 
by  hesitations  about  quantity  and  accent,  and  petty  dif- 
ferences of  phrase  and  idiom,  and  how  greatly  intona- 
tion and  accent  may  warp  and  limit  our  sympathy. 

And  while  they  are  doing  this  for  the  general  lin- 
guistic atmosphere,  the  New  Republicans  could  also 
attempt  something  to  reach  the  children  in  detail. 

By  instinct  nearly  every  mother  wants  to  teach. 
Some  teach  by  instinct,  but  for  the  most  part  there  is 
a  need  of  guidance  in  their  teaching.  At  present  these 
first  and  very  important  phases  in  education  are  guided 
almost  entirely  by  tradition.  The  necessary  singing 
and  talking  to  very  young  children  is  done  in  imitation 
of  similar  singing  and  talking;  it  is  probably  done  no 
better,  it  may  possibly  be  done  much  worse,  than  it  was 
done  two  hundred  years  ago.  A  very  great  amount  of 
permanent  improvement  in  human  affairs  might  be  se- 
cured in  this  direction  by  the  expenditure  of  a  few  thou- 
sand pounds  in  the  systematic  study  of  the  most  educa- 
tional method  of  dealing  with  children  in  the  first  two 
or  three  years  of  life,  and  in  the  intelligent  propagation 
of  the  knowledge  obtained.  There  exist  already,  it  is 
true,  a  number  of  Child  Study  Associations,  Parents' 
Unions,  and  the  like,  but  for  the  most  part  these  are 
quite  ineffectual  talking  societies,  akin  to  Browning 
Societies,  Literary  and  Natural  History  Societies :  they 
attain  a  trifling  amount  of  mutual  improvement  at  their 
best,  the  members  read  papers  to  one  another,  and  a 


Beginnings  of  Mind  and  Language     131 

few  medical  men  and  schools  secure  a  needed  advertise- 
ment. They  have  no  organization,  no  concentration 
of  their  energy,  and  their  chief  effect  seems  to  be  to 
present  an  interest  in  education  as  if  it  were  a  harmless, 
pointless  fad.  But  if  a  few  men  of  means  and  capacity 
were  to  organize  a  committee  with  adequate  funds, 
secure  the  services  of  specially  endowed  men  for  the 
exhaustive  study  of  developing  speech,  publish  a  di- 
gested report,  and,  with  the  assistance  of  a  good  writer 
or  so,  produce  very  cheaply,  advertise  vigorously,  and 
disseminate  widely  a  small,  clearly  printed,  clearly  writ- 
ten book  of  pithy  instructions  for  mothers  and  nurses 
in  this  matter  of  early  speech  they  would  quite  certainly 
effect  a  great  improvement  in  the  mental  foundations 
of  the  coming  generation.  We  do  not  yet  appreciate 
the  fact  that  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the 
world  there  exists  a  state  of  society  in  which  almost 
every  nurse  and  mother  reads.  It  is  no  longer  neces- 
sary to  rely  wholly  upon  instinct  and  tradition,  there- 
fore, for  the  early  stages  of  a  child's  instruction.  We 
can  reinforce  and  organize  these  things  through  the 
printed  word. 

For  example,  an  important  factor  in  the  early  stage 
of  speech-teaching  is  the  nursery  rhyme.  A  little 
child,  towards  the  end  of  the  first  year,  having  accumu- 
lated a  really  very  comprehensive  selection  of  sounds 
and  noises  by  that  time,  begins  to  imitate  first  the  asso- 
ciated motions,  and  then  the  sounds  of  various  nursery 
rhymes — "Pat-a-cake,"  for  example.  In  the  book  I 
imagine,  there  would  be,  among  many  other  things,  a 


132  Mankind  in  the  Making 

series  of  little  versicles,  old  and  new,  in  which,  to  the 
accompaniment  of  simple  gestures,  all  the  elementary 
sounds  of  the  language  could  be  easily  and  agreeably 
made  familiar  to  the  child's  ears.^ 

And  the  same  book  I  think  might  well  contain  a  list 
of  foundation  things  and  words  and  certain  elementary 
forms  of  expression  which  the  child  should  become  per- 
fectly familiar  with  in  the  first  three  or  four  years  of 
life.  Much  of  each  little  child's  vocabulary  is  its  per- 
sonal adventure,  and  Heaven  save  us  all  from  system 
in  excess !  But  I  think  it  would  be  possible  for  a  subtle 
psychologist  to  trace  through  the  easy  natural  tangle 
of  the  personal  briar-rose  of  speech  certain  necessary 
strands,  that  hold  the  whole  growth  together  and  ren- 
der its  later  expansion  easy  and  swift  and  strong. 
Whatever  else  the  child  gets,  it  must  get  these  funda- 
mental strands  well  and  early  if  it  is  to  do  its  best.  If 
they  do  not  develop  now  their  imperfection  will  cause 
delay  and  difficulty  later.  There  are,  for  example, 
among  these  fundamental  necessities,  idioms  to  express 
comparison,  to  express  position  in  space  and  time,  ele- 
mentary conceptions  of  form  and  colour,  of  tense  and 
mood,  the  pronouns  and  the  like.  No  doubt,  in  one 
way  or  another,  most  of  these  forms  are  acquired  by 

>  Messrs.  Heath  of  Boston,  U.S.A.,  have  sent  me  a  book  of  Nursery 
Rh>'mes,  arranged  by  Mr.  Charles  Welsh,  which  is  certainly  the  best 
thing  I  have  seen  in  this  way.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  the  neglect 
of  pedagogic  study  in  Great  Britain  is  forcing  the  intelligent  British 
parent  and  teacher  to  rely  more  and  more  upon  American  publishers 
for  children's  books.  The  work  of  English  writers  is  often  very  tasteful 
and  pretty,  but  of  the  smallest  educational  value. 


Beginnings  of  Mind  and  Language     1 33 

every  child,  but  there  is  no  reason  why  their  acquisi- 
tion should  not  be  watched  with  the  help  of  a  wisely 
framed  list,  and  any  deficiency  deliberately  and  care- 
fully supplied.  It  would  have  to  be  a  wisely  framed 
list,  it  would  demand  the  utmost  effort  of  the  best  in- 
telligence, and  that  is  why  something  more  than  the 
tradesman  enterprise  of  publishers  is  needed  in  this 
work.  The  publisher's  ideal  of  an  author  of  an  edu- 
cational work  is  a  clever  girl  in  her  teens  working  for 
pocket-money.  What  is  wanted  is  a  little  quintessen- 
tial book  better  and  cheaper  than  any  publisher,  pub- 
lishing for  gain,  could  possibly  produce,  a  book  so  good 
that  imitation  would  be  difficult,  and  so  cheap  and 
universally  sold  that  no  imitation  would  be  profit- 
able.   .    .    . 

Upon  this  foundation  of  a  sound  accent  and  a  basis 
vocabulary  must  be  built  the  general  fabric  of  the  lan- 
guage. For  the  most  part  this  must  be  done  in  the 
school.  At  present  in  Great  Britain  a  considerable 
proportion  of  schoolmasters  and  schoolmistresses — 
more  particularly  those  in  secondary  and  private  schools 
— are  too  ill-educated  to  do  this  properly;  there  is  ex- 
cellent reason  for  supposing  things  are  very  little  bet- 
ter in  America ;  and,  to  begin  with,  it  must  be  the  care 
of  every  good  New  Republican  to  bring  about  a  better 
state  of  things  in  this  most  lamentable  profession. 
Until  the  teacher  can  read  and  write,  in  the  fullest  sense 
of  these  words,  it  is  idle  to  expect  him  or  her  to  teach 
the  pupil  to  do  these  things.  As  matters  are  at  pres- 
ent, the  attempt  is  scarcely  made.     In  the  elementary 


134  Mankind  in  the  Making 

and  lower  secondary  schools  ill-chosen  reading-books 
are  scampered  through  and  abandoned  all  too  soon  in 
favour  of  more  pretentious  "subjects,"  and  a  certain 
preposterous  nonsense  called  English  Grammar  is 
passed  through  the  pupil — stuff  which  happily  no  mind 
can  retain.  Little  girls  and  boys  of  twelve  or  thirteen, 
who  cannot  understand,  and  never  will  understand  any- 
thing but  the  vulgarest  English,  and  who  will  never  in 
their  lives  achieve  a  properly  punctuated  letter,  are 
taught  such  mysteries  as  that  there  are  eight — I  believe 
it  is  eight — sorts  of  nominative,  and  that  there  is  (or 
is  not)  a  gerundive  in  English,  and  trained  month  after 
month  and  year  after  year  to  perform  the  oddest  opera- 
tions, a  non-analytical  analysis,  and  a  ritual  called 
parsing  that  must  be  seen  to  be  believed.  It  is  no  good 
mincing  the  truth  about  all  this  sort  of  thing.  These 
devices  are  resorted  to  by  the  school  teachers  of  the 
present  just  as  the  Rules  of  Double  and  Single  Alliga- 
tion and  Double  Rule  of  Three,  and  all  the  rest  of  that 
solemn  tomfoolery,  were  "taught"  by  the  arithmetic 
teachers  in  the  academies  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
because  they  are  utterly  ignorant,  and  know  themselves 
to  be  utterly  ignorant,  of  the  reality  of  the  subject,  and 
because,  therefore,  they  have  to  humbug  the  parent 
and  pass  the  time  by  unreal  inventions.  The  case  is 
not  a  bit  better  in  the  higher  grade  schools.  They  do 
not  do  so  much  of  the  bogus  teaching  of  English,  but 
they  do  nothing  whatever  in  its  place. 

Now  it  is  little  use  to  goad  the  members  of  an  ill- 
trained,  ill-treated,  ill-organized,  poorly  respected  and 


Beginnings  of  Mind  and  Language     135 

much-abused^   profession  with  reproaches  for  doing 
what  they  cannot  do,  or  to  clamour  for  legislation  that 
will  give  more  school  time  or  heavier  subsidies  to  the 
pretence  of  teaching  what  very  few  people  are  able  to 
teach.     We  all  know  how  atrociously  English  is  taught, 
but  proclaiming  that  will  not  mend  matters  a  bit,  it 
will  only  render  matters  worse  by  making  schoolmas- 
ters and  schoolmistresses  shameless  and  effortless,  un- 
less we  also  show  how  well  English  may  be  taught. 
The  sane  course  is  to  begin  by  establishing  the  proper 
way  to  do  the  thing,  to  develop  a  proper  method  and 
demonstrate  what  can  be  done  by  that  method  in  a  few 
selected  schools,  to  prepare  and  render  acceptable  the 
necessary  class-books,  and  then  to  use  examination  and 
inspector,  grant  in  aid,  training  college,  lecture,  book 
and  pamphlet  to  spread  the  sound  expedients.     We 
want  an  English  Language  Society,  of  affluent  and  vig- 
orous people,  that  will  undertake  this  work.     And  one 
chief  duty  of  that  society  will  be  to  devise,  to  arrange 
and  select,  to  print  handsomely,  to  illustrate  beautifully 
and  to  sell  cheaply  and  vigorously  everywhere,  a  series 
of  reading  books,  and  perhaps  of  teachers'  companions 
to  these  reading  books,  that  shall  serve  as  the  basis  of 
instruction  in  Standard  English  throughout  the  whole 
world.     These  books,  as  I  conceive  them,  would  begin 
as  reading  primers,  they  would  progress  through  a 
long  series  of  subtly  graded  stories,  passages  and  ex- 
tracts until  they  had  given  the  complete  range  of  our 
tongue.     They   would    be   read    from,    recited    from, 

>  Peccavi. 


136  Mankind  in  the  Making 

quoted  in  exemplification  and  imitated  by  the  pupils. 
Such  splendid  matter  as  Henley  and  Whibley's  collec- 
tion of  Elizabethan  Prose,  for  example,  might  well  find 
a  place  toward  the  end  of  that  series  of  books.  There 
would  be  an  anthology  of  English  lyrics,  of  all  the  best 
short  stories  in  our  language,  of  all  the  best  episodes. 
From  these  readers  the  pupil  would  pass,  still  often 
reading  and  reciting  aloud,  to  such  a  series  of  master- 
pieces as  an  efficient  English  Language  Society  could 
force  upon  every  school.  At  present  in  English  schools 
a  library  is  an  exception  rather  than  a  rule,  and  your 
clerical  head-master  on  public  occasions  will  cheerfully 
denounce  the  "trash"  reading,  "snippet"  reading  habits 
of  the  age,  with  that  defect  lying  like  a  feather  on  his 
expert  conscience.  A  school  without  an  easily  accessi- 
ble library  of  at  least  a  thousand  volumes  is  really 
scarcely  a  school  at  all — it  is  a  dispensary  without  bot- 
tles, a  kitchen  without  a  pantry.  For  all  that,  if  the 
inquiring  New  Republican  find  two  hundred  linen-cov- 
ered volumes  of  the  Eric,  or  Little  by  Little  type,  mean 
goody-goody  thought  dressed  in  its  appropriate  lan- 
guage, stored  away  in  some  damp  cupboard  of  his  son's 
school,  and  accessible  once  a  week,  he  may  feel  assured 
things  are  above  the  average  there.  My  imaginary 
English  Language  Society  would  make  it  a  funda- 
mental duty,  firstly  to  render  that  library  of  at  least  a 
thousand  volumes  or  so  specially  cheap  and  easily  pro- 
curable, and  secondly,  by  pamphlets  and  agitation,  to 
render  it  a  compulsory  minimum  requirement  for  every 


Beginnings  of  Mind  and  Language     1 37 

grade  of  school.  It  is  far  more  important,  and  it 
would  be  far  less  costly  even  as  things  are,  than  the 
cheapest  sort  of  chemical  laboratory  a  school  could 
have,  and  it  should  cost  scarcely  more  than  a  school 
piano.     .    .     . 

I  know  very  little  of  the  practical  teaching  of  Eng- 
lish, my  own  very  fragmentary  knowledge  of  the  more 
familiar  cliches  of  our  tongue  was  acquired  in  a  hap- 
hazard fashion,  but  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  in  addi- 
tion to  much  reading  aloud  and  recitation  from  mem- 
ory the  work  of  instruction  might  consist  very  largely 
of  continually  more  extensive  efforts  towards  original 
composition.  Paraphrasing  is  a  good  exercise,  pro- 
vided that  it  does  not  consist  in  turning  good  and 
beautiful  English  into  bad.  I  do  not  see  why  it  should 
not  follow  the  reverse  direction.  Selected  passages  of 
mean,  stereotyped,  garrulous  or  inexact  prose  might 
very  well  be  rewritten,  under  the  direction  of  an  intelli- 
gent master.  Retelling  a  story  that  has  just  been  read 
and  discussed,  with  a  change  of  incident  perhaps,  would 
also  not  be  a  bad  sort  of  exercise,  writing  passages  in 
imitation  of  set  passages  and  the  like.  Written  de- 
scriptions of  things  displayed  to  a  class  should  also  be 
instructive.  Caught  at  the  right  age,  most  little  girls, 
and  many  little  boys  I  believe,  would  learn  very  pleas- 
antly to  write  simple  verse.  This  they  should  be  en- 
couraged to  read  aloud.  At  a  later  stage  the  more  set- 
tled poetic  forms,  the  ballade,  the  sonnet,  the  rondeau, 
for  example,  should  afford  a  good  practice  in  handling 


138  Mankind  in  the  Making 

language.  Pupils  should  be  encouraged  to  import 
fresh  words  into  their  work — even  if  the  effect  is  a 
little  startling  at  times — they  should  hunt  the  diction- 
ary for  material.  A  good  book  for  the  upper  forms  in 
schools  dealing  in  a  really  intelligent  and  instructive 
way  with  Latin  and  Greek,  so  far  as  it  is  necessary  to 
know  these  languages  in  order  to  use  and  manipulate 
technical  English  freely,  would,  I  conceive,  be  of  very 
great  service.  It  must  be  a  good  exercise  to  write  pre- 
cise definitions  of  words.  Logic  also  is  an  integral  por- 
tion of  the  study  of  the  mother-tongue. 

But  to  throw  out  suggestions  in  this  way  is  an  easy 
task.  The  educational  papers  are  full  of  this  sort  of 
thing,  educational  conferences  resound  with  it.  What 
the  world  is  not  full  of  is  the  capacity  to  organize 
these  things,  to  drag  them,  struggling  and  clinging  to 
a  thousand  unanticipated  difiiculties,  from  the  region 
of  the  counsel  of  perfection  to  the  region  of  manifest 
practicability.  For  that  there  is  needed  attention,  in- 
dustry, and  an  intelligent  use  of  a  fair  sum  of  money. 
We  want  an  industrious  committee,  and  we  want  one 
or  two  rich  men.  A  series  of  books,  a  model  course 
of  instruction,  has  to  be  planned  and  made,  tried  over, 
criticised,  revised  and  altered.  When  the  right  way 
is  no  longer  indicated  by  prophetic  persons  pointing 
in  a  mist,  but  marked  out,  levelled,  mapped  and  fenced, 
then  the  scholastic  profession,  wherever  the  English 
language  is  spoken,  has  to  be  lured  and  driven  along 
it.    The  New  Republican  must  make  his  course  cheap. 


Beginnings  of  Mind  and  Language     139 

attractive,  easy  for  the  teacher  and  good  for  the 
teacher's  pocket  and  reputation.  Just  as  there  are  plays 
that,  as  actors  say,  "act  themselves,"  so,  with  a  pro- 
fession that  is  rarely  at  its  best  and  often  at  its  worst, 
and  which  at  its  worst  consists  of  remarkably  dull 
young  men  and  remarkably  dreary  young  women, 
those  who  want  English  well  taught  must  see  to  it  that 
they  provide  a  series  of  books  and  instructors  that 
will  teach  by  themselves,  whatever  the  teacher  does  to 
prevent  them. 

Surely  this  enterprise  of  text-books  and  teachers, 
of  standard  phonographs  and  cheaply  published  clas- 
sics, is  no  fantastic  impossible  dream!  So  far  as 
money  goes — if  only  money  were  the  one  thing  needful 
— a  hundred  thousand  pounds  would  be  a  sufficient 
fund  from  first  to  last  for  all  of  it.  Yet  modest  as  its 
proportions  are,  its  consequences,  were  it  done  by  able 
men  throwing  their  hearts  into  it,  might  be  of  incal- 
culable greatness.  By  such  expedients  and  efforts  as 
these  we  might  enormously  forward  the  establishment 
of  that  foundation  of  a  world-wide  spacious  language, 
the  foundation  upon  which  there  will  arise  for  our 
children  subtler  understandings,  ampler  imaginations, 
sounder  judgments  and  clearer  resolutions,  and  all  that 
makes  at  last  a  nobler  world  of  men. 

But  in  this  discussion  of  school  libraries  and  the 
like,  we  wander  a  little  from  our  immediate  topic  of 
mental  beginnings. 


140  Mankind  in  the  Making 


§3 

At  the  end  of  the  fifth  year,  as  the  natural  outcome 
of  its  instinctive  effort  to  experiment  and  learn,  acting 
amidst  wisely  ordered  surroundings,  the  little  child 
should  have  acquired  a  certain  definite  foundation 
for  the  educational  structure.  It  should  have  a  vast 
variety  of  perceptions  stored  in  its  mind,  and  a 
vocabulary  of  three  or  four  thousand  words,  and 
among  these,  and  holding  them  together,  there  should 
be  certain  structural  and  cardinal  ideas.  They  are 
ideas  that  will  have  been  gradually  and  imperceptibly 
instilled,  and  they  are  necessary  as  the  basis  of  a 
sound  mental  existence.  There  must  be.  to  begin 
with,  a  developing  sense  and  feeling  for  truth  and  for 
duty  as  something  distinct  and  occasionally  conflicting 
with  immediate  impulse  and  desire,  and  there  must  be 
certain  clear  intellectual  elements  established  already 
almost  impregnably  in  the  mind,  certain  primary  dis- 
tinctions and  classifications.  Many  children  are  called 
stupid,  and  begin  their  educational  career  with  need- 
less difiiculty  through  an  unsoundness  of  these  funda- 
mental intellectual  elements,  an  unsoundness  in  no  way 
inherent,  but  the  result  of  accident  and  neglect.  And 
a  starting  handicap  of  this  sort  may  go  on  increasing 
right  through  the  whole  life. 

The  child  at  five,  unless  it  is  colour  blind,  should 
know  the  range  of  colours  by  name,  and  distinguish 


Beginnings  of  Mind  mid  Language     141 

them  easily,  blue  and  green  not  excepted ;  it  should 
be  able  to  distinguish  pink  from  pale  red  and  crimson 
from  scarlet.^  Many  children  through  the  neglect  of 
those  about  them  do  not  distinguish  these  colours  until 
a  very  much  later  age.  I  think  also — in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  many  adults  go  vague  and  ignorant  on  these 
points — that  a  child  of  five  may  have  been  taught  to 
distinguish  between  a  square,  a  circle,  an  oval,  a  tri- 
angle and  an  oblong,  and  to  use  these  words.  It  is 
easier  to  keep  hold  of  ideas  with  words  than  without 
them,  and  none  of  these  words  should  be  impossible  by 
five.  The  child  should  also  know  familiarly  by  means 
of  toys,  wood  blocks  and  so  on,  many  elementary  solid 
forms.  It  is  matter  of  regret  that  in  common  lan- 
guage we  have  no  easy,  convenient  words  for  many  of 
these  forms,  and  instead  of  being  learnt  easily  and 
naturally  in  play,  they  are  left  undistinguished,  and 
have  to  be  studied  later  under  circumstances  of  for- 
bidding technicality.  It  would  be  quite  easy  to  teach 
the  child  in  an  incidental  w^ay  to  distinguish  cube, 
cylinder,  cone,  sphere  (or  ball),  prolate  spheroid 
(which  might  be  called  ^'^%z'^,  oblate  spheroid 
(which  might  be  called  "squatty  ball"),  the  pyramid, 
and  various  parallelopipeds,  as,  for  example,  the  square 
slab,  the  oblong  slab,  the  brick,  and  post.  He  could 
have  these  things  added  to  his  box  of  bricks  by  degrees, 
he  would  build  with  them  and  combine  them  and  play 

1  There  could  be  a  set  of  colour  bands  in  the  book  that  the  English 
Language  Society  might  publish. 


142  Mankind  in  the  Making 

with  them  over  and  over  again,  and  absorb  an  intimate 
knowledge  of  their  properties,  just  at  the  age  when 
such  knowledge  is  almost  instinctively  sought  and  is 
most  pleasant  and  easy  in  its  acquisition.  These  things 
need  not  be  specially  forced  upon  him.  In  no  way 
should  he  be  led  to  emphasize  them  or  give  a  priggish 
importance  to  his  knowledge  of  them.  They  will  come 
into  his  toys  and  play  mingled  with  a  thousand  other 
interests,  the  fortifying  powder  of  clear  general  ideas, 
amidst  the  jam  of  play. 

In  addition  the  child  should  be  able  to  count,^   it 

*  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  many  of  us  were  taught  to  count 
very  badly,  and  that  we  were  hampered  in  our  arithmetic  throughout  life 
by  this  defect.  Counting  should  be  taught  be  means  of  small  cubes, 
which  the  child  can  arrange  and  rearrange  in  groups.  It  should  have 
at  least  over  a  hundred  of  these  cubes — if  possible  a  thousand;  they 
will  be  useful  as  toy  bricks,  and  for  innumerable  purposes.  Our  civ- 
ilization is  now  wedded  to  a  decimal  system  of  counting,  and,  to  begin 
with,  it  will  be  well  to  teach  the  child  to  count  up  to  ten  and  to  stop 
there  for  a  time.  It  is  suggested  by  Mrs.  Mary  Everest  Boole  that  it  is 
verj'  confusing  to  have  distinctive  names  for  eleven  and  twelve,  which 
the  child  is  apt  to  class  with  the  single  numbers  and  contrast  with  the 
teens,  and  she  proposes  at  the  beginning  ( The  Cultivation  oj  the  Mathe- 
matical Imagination,  Colchester:  Benham  &  Co.)  to  use  the  words 
"one-ten,"  "two-ten,"  thirteen,  fourteen,  etc.,  for  the  second  decade 
in  counting.  Her  proposal  is  entirely  in  harmony  with  the  general 
drift  of  the  admirably  suggestive  diagrams  of  number  order  collected 
by  Mr.  Francis  Galton.  Diagram  after  diagram  displays  the  same 
hitch  at  twelve,  the  predominance  in  the  mind  of  an  individualized 
series  over  quantitatively  equal  spaces  until  the  twenties  are  attained. 
Many  diagrams  also  display  the  mental  scar  of  the  clock  face,  the  early 
counting  is  overmuch  associated  with  a  dial.  One  might  perhaps  head 
off  the  establishment  of  that  image,  and  supply  a  more  serviceable 
foundation  for  memories  by  equipping  the  nursery  with  a  vertical  scale 


Beginnings  of  Mind  and  Language     1 43 

should  be  capable  of  some  mental  and  experimental 
arithmetic,  and  I  am  told  that  a  child  of  five  should 
be  able  to  give  the  sol-fa  names  to  notes,  and  sing 
these  names  at  their  proper  pitch.  Possibly  in  social 
intercourse  the  child  will  have  picked  up  names  for 
some  of  the  letters  of  the  alphabet,  but  there  is  no 
great  hurry  for  that  before  five  certainly,  or  even  later. 

of  numbers  divided  into  equal  parts  up  to  two  or  three  hundred,  with 
each  decade  tinted.  When  the  child  has  learnt  to  count  up  to  a  hundred 
with  cubes,  it  should  be  given  an  abacus,  and  it  should  also  be  encour- 
aged to  count  and  check  quantities  with  all  sorts  of  things,  marbles, 
apples,  bricks  in  a  wall,  pebbles,  spots  on  dominoes,  and  so  on;  taught 
to  play  guessing  games  with  marbles  in  a  hand,  and  the  like.  The 
abacus,  the  hundred  square  and  the  thousand  cube,  will  then  in  all 
probability  become  its  cardinal  numerical  memories.  Playing  cards 
(without  corner  indices)  and  dominoes  supply  good  recognizable  arrange- 
ments of  numbers,  and  train  a  child  to  grasp  a  number  at  a  glance. 
The  child  should  not  be  taught  the  Arabic  numerals  until  it  has  counted 
for  a  year  or  more.  Experience  speaks  here.  I  know  one  case  only 
too  well  of  a  man  who  learnt  his  Arabic  numerals  prematurely,  before 
he  had  acquired  any  sound  experimental  knowledge  of  numerical 
quantity,  and,  as  a  consequence,  his  numerical  ideas  are  incurably 
associated  with  the  peculiarities  of  the  figures.  When  he  hears  the 
word  seven  he  does  not  really  think  of  seven  or  seven-ness  at  all,  even 
now,  he  thinks  of  a  number  rather  like  four  and  very  unlike  six.  Then 
again,  six  and  nine  are  mysteriously  and  unreasonably  linked  in  his 
mind,  and  so  are  three  and  five.  He  confuses  niunbers  like  sixty-three 
and  sixty-five,  and  finds  it  hard  to  keep  seventy-four  distinct  from 
forty-seven.  Consequently,  when  it  came  to  the  multiplication  table,  he 
learnt  each  table  as  an  arbitrary  arrangement  of  relationships,  and 
with  an  extraordinary  amount  of  needless  labour  and  punishment.  But 
obviously  with  cubes  or  abacus  at  hand,  it  would  be  the  easiest  thing 
in  the  world  for  a  child  to  construct  and  learn  its  own  multiplication 
table  whenever  the  need  arose. 


144  Mankind  in  the  Making 

There  is  still  a  vast  amount  of  things  immediately 
about  the  child  that  need  to  be  thoroughly  learnt,  and 
a  premature  attack  on  letters  divides  attention  from 
these  more  appropriate  and  educational  objects.  It 
should,  for  the  reason  given  in  the  footnote,  be  still 
ignorant  of  the  Arabic  numerals.  It  should  be  able  to 
handle  a  pencil  and  amuse  itself  with  freehand  of  this 
sort : — 


\ 


i 


and  its  mind  should  be  quite  uncontaminated  by  that 
imbecile  drawing  upon  squared  paper  by  means  of 
which  ignorant  teachers  destroy  both  the  desire  and 
the  capacity  to  sketch  in  so  many  little  children.  Such 
sketching  could  be  enormously  benefited  by  a  really  in- 
telligent teacher  who  would  watch  the  child's  efforts, 
and  draw  with  the  child  just  a  little  above  its  level. 
For  example,  the  teacher  might  stimulate  effort  by 


Beginnings  of  Mind  and  Language     1 45 

rejoining  to  such  a  sketch  as  the  above,  something  in 
this  vein : — 


The  child  will  already  be  a  great  student  of  picture- 
books  at  five,  something  of  a  critic  (after  the  manner 
of  the  realistic  school),  and  it  v^ill  be  easy  to  ^%%  it 
almost  imperceptibly  to  a  level  where  copying  from 
simple  outline  illustrations  will  become  possible.  About 
five,  a  present  of  some  one  of  the  plastic  substitutes 
for  modelling  clay  now  sold  by  educational  dealers, 
plasticine  for  example,  will  be  a  discreet  and  accept- 
able present  to  the  child — if  not  to  its  nurse. 

The  child's  imagination  will  also  be  awake  and 
active  at  five.  He  will  look  out  on  the  world  with 
anthropomorphic  (or  rather  with  psedomorphic)  eyes. 
He  will  be  living  on  a  great  flat  earth — unless  some 


146  Mankind  in  the  Making 

officious  person  has  tried  to  muddle  his  wits  by  telling 
him  the  earth  is  round;  amidst  trees,  animals,  men, 
houses,  engines,  utensils,  that  are  all  capable  of  being 
good  or  naughty,  all  fond  of  nice  things  and  hostile 
to  nasty  ones,  all  thumpable  and  perishable,  and  all 
conceivably  esurient.  And  the  child  should  know  of 
Fairy  Land.  The  beautiful  fancy  of  the  "Little  Peo- 
ple," even  if  you  do  not  give  it  to  him,  he  will  very 
probably  get  for  himself;  they  will  lurk  always  just 
out  of  reach  of  his  desiring  curious  eyes,  amidst  the 
grass  and  flowers  and  behind  the  wainscot  and  in  the 
shadows  of  the  bedroom.  He  will  come  upon  their 
traces;  they  will  do  him  little  kindnesses.  Their 
affairs  should  interweave  with  the  affairs  of  the  child's 
dolls  and  brick  castles  and  toy  furniture.  At  first 
the  child  will  scarcely  be  in  a  world  of  sustained 
stories,  but  very  eager  for  anecdotes  and  simple  short 
tales. 

This  is  the  hopeful  foundation  upon  which  at  or 
about  the  fifth  year  the  formal  education  of  every 
child  in  a  really  civilized  community  ought  to  begin.* 

•  One  may  note  here,  perhaps,  the  desirability  too  often  disregarded 
by  over-solicitous  parents,  and  particularly  by  the  parents  of  the  solitary 
children  who  are  now  so  common,  of  keeping  the  child  a  little  out  of 
focus,  letting  it  play  by  itself  whenever  it  will,  never  calling  attention 
to  it  in  a  manner  that  awakens  it  to  the  fact  of  an  audience,  never  talking 
about  it  in  its  presence.  Solitary  children  commonly  get  too  much 
control,  they  are  forced  and  beguiled  upward  rather  than  allowed  to 
grow,  their  egotism  is  over-stimulated,  and  they  miss  many  of  the  benefits 
of  play  and  competition.  It  seems  a  pity,  too,  in  the  case  of  so  many 
well-to-do  people,  that  having  equipped  nurseries  they  should  not  put 
them  to  a  fuller  use — if  in  no  other  way  than  by  admitting  foster  children. 


Beginnings  of  Mind  and  Language     1 47 

None  of  this  has  been  very  fully  analyzed,  of  course  (there  are  enormous 
areas  of  valuable  research  in  these  matters  waiting  for  people  of  intelli- 
gence and  leisure,  or  of  intelligence  and  means),  but  the  opinion  that 
solitary  children  are  handicapped  by  their  loneliness  is  very  strong. 
It  is  nearly  certain  that  as  a  rule  they  make  less  agreeable  boys  and  girls, 
but  to  me  at  any  rate  it  is  not  nearly  so  certain  that  they  make  adult 
failures.  It  vi^ould  be  interesting  to  learn  just  what  proportion  of  sol- 
itary children  there  is  on  the  roll  of  those  who  have  become  great  in 
our  world.  One  thinks  of  John  Ruskin,  a  particularly  fine  specimen 
of  the  highly  focussed  single  son.  Prig  perhaps  he  was,  but  this  world 
has  a  certain  need  of  such  prigs.  A  correspondent  (a  schoolmistress  of 
experience)  who  has  collected  statistics  in  her  own  neighbourhood, 
is  strongly  of  opinion  not  only  that  solitary  children  are  below  the 
average,  but  that  all  elder  children  are  inferior  in  quality.  I  do  not 
believe  this,  but  it  would  be  interesting  and  valuable  if  some  one  could 
find  time  for  a  wide  and  thorough  investigation  of  this  question. 


V 

The  Man-making  Forces  of  the  Modern  State 

So  far  we  have  concerned  ourselves  with  the  intro- 
ductory and  foundation  matter  of  the  New  RepubHcan 
project,  with  the  measures  and  methods  that  may  be 
resorted  to,  firstly,  if  we  would  raise  the  general  qual- 
ity of  the  children  out  of  whom  we  have  to  make  the 
next  generation,  and,  secondly,  if  we  would  replace 
divergent  dialects  and  partial  and  confused  expression 
by  a  uniform,  ample  and  thorough  knowledge  of  Eng- 
lish throughout  the  English-speaking  world.  These 
two  things  are  necessary  preliminaries  to  the  complete 
attainment  of  the  more  essential  nucleus  in  the  New 
Republican  idea.  So  much  has  been  discussed.  This 
essential  nucleus,  thus  stripped,  reveals  itself  as  the 
systematic  direction  of  the  moulding  forces  that  play 
upon  the  developing  citizen,  towards  his  improvement, 
with  a  view  to  a  new  generation  of  individuals,  a  new 
social  state,  at  a  higher  level  than  that  at  which  we 
live  to-day,  a  new  generation  which  will  apply  the 
greater  power,  ampler  knowledge  and  more  definite 
will  our  endeavours  will  give  it,  to  raise  its  successor 
still  higher  in  the  scale  of  life.  Or  we  may  put  the 
thing  in  another  and  more  concrete  and  vivid  way. 

On  the  one  hand  imagine  an  average  little  child,  let  us 

148 


The  Modern  State  149 

say  in  its  second  year.  We  have  discussed  all  that 
can  be  done  to  secure  that  this  average  little  child 
shall  be  well  born,  well  fed,  well  cared  for,  and  we  will 
imagine  all  that  can  be  done  has  been  done.  Accord- 
ingly, we  have  a  sturdy,  beautiful  healthy  little  crea- 
ture to  go  upon,  just  beginning  to  walk,  just  begin- 
ning to  clutch  at  things  with  its  hands,  to  reach  out  to 
and  apprehend  things  with  its  eyes,  with  its  ears,  with 
the  hopeful  commencement  of  speech.  We  want  to 
arrange  matters  so  that  this  little  being  shall  develop 
into  its  best  possible  adult  form.  That  is  our  remain- 
ing problem. 

Is  our  contemporary  average  citizen  the  best  that 
could  have  been  made  out  of  the  vague  extensive  pos- 
sibilities that  resided  in  him  when  he  was  a  child  of 
two?  It  has  been  shown  already  that  in  height  and 
weight  he,  demonstrably,  is  not,  and  it  has  been  sug- 
gested, I  hope  almost  as  convincingly,  that  in  that 
complex  apparatus  of  acquisition  and  expression,  lan- 
guage, he  is  also  needlessly  deficient.  And  even  upon 
this  defective  foundation,  it  is  submitted,  he  still  fails, 
morally,  mentally,  socially,  ^sthetically,  to  be  as  much 
as  he  might  be.  "As  much  as  he  might  be,"  is  far 
too  ironically  mild.  The  average  citizen  of  our  great 
state  to-day  is,  I  would  respectfully  submit,  scarcely 
more  than  a  dirty  clout  about  his  own  buried  talents. 

I  do  not  say  he  might  not  be  infinitely  worse,  but 
can  any  one  believe  that,  given  better  conditions,  he 
might  not  have  been  infinitely  better  ?  Is  it  necessary 
to  argue  for  a  thing  so  obvious  to  all  clear-sighted 


150  Mankind  in  the  Making 

men?  Is  it  necessary,  even  if  it  were  possible,  that 
I  should  borrow  the  mantle  of  Mr.  George  Gissing  or 
the  force  of  Mr.  Arthur  Morrison,  and  set  myself  in 
cold  blood  to  measure  the  enormous  defect  of  myself 
and  my  fellows  by  the  standards  of  a  remote  perfec- 
tion, to  gauge  the  extent  of  this  complex  muddle  of 
artificial  and  avoidable  shortcomings  through  which 
we  struggle?  Must  one,  indeed,  pass  in  review  once 
more,  bucolic  stupidity,  commercial  cunning,  urban 
vulgarity,  religious  hypocrisy,  political  clap-trap,  and 
all  the  raw  disorder  of  our  incipient  civilization  before 
the  point  will  be  conceded?  What  benefit  is  there  in 
any  such  revision?  rather  it  may  overwhelm  us  with 
the  magnitude  of  what  we  seek  to  do.  Let  us  not 
dwell  on  it,  on  all  the  average  civilized  man  still  fails 
to  achieve;  admit  his  imperfection,  and  for  the  rest 
let  us  keep  steadfastly  before  us  that  fair,  alluring  and 
reasonable  conception  of  all  that,  even  now,  the  aver- 
age man  might  be. 

Yet  one  is  tempted  by  the  effective  contrast  to  put 
against  that  clean  and  beautiful  child  some  vivid 
presentation  of  the  average  thing,  to  sketch  in  a  few 
simple  lines  the  mean  and  graceless  creature  of  our 
modern  life,  his  ill-made  clothes,  his  clumsy,  half-fear- 
ful, half-brutal  bearing,  his  coarse  defective  speech, 
his  dreary  unintelligent  work,  his  shabby,  impossible, 
bathless,  artless,  comfortless  home;  one  is  provoked 
to  suggest  him  in  some  phase  of  typical  activity,  "en- 
joying himself"  on  a  Bank  Holiday,  or  rejoicing,  pea- 
cock feather  in  hand,  hat  askew,  and  voice  completely 


The  Modern  State  151 

gone,  on  some  occasion  of  public  festivity — on  the  de- 
feat of  a  numerically  inferior  enemy  for  example,  or 
the  decision  of  some  great  international  issue  at  base- 
ball or  cricket.  This,  one  would  say,  we  have  made 
out  of  that,  and  so  point  the  New  Republican  question, 
"Cannot  we  do  better?"  But  the  thing  has  been  done 
so  often  without  ever  the  breath  of  a  remedy.  Our 
business  is  with  remedies.  We  mean  to  do  better,  we 
live  to  do  better,  and  with  no  more  than  a  glance  at 
our  present  failures  we  will  set  ourselves  to  that. 

To  do  better  we  must  begin  with  a  careful  analysis 
of  the  process  of  this  man's  making,  of  the  great  com- 
plex of  circumstances  which  mould  the  vague  possi- 
bilities of  the  average  child  into  the  reality  of  the 
citizen  of  the  modern  state. 

We  may  begin  upon  this  complex  most  hopefully 
by  picking  out  a  few  of  the  conspicuous  and  typical 
elements  and  using  them  as  a  basis  for  an  exhaustive 
classification.  To  begin  with,  of  course,  there  is  the 
home.  For  our  present  purpose  it  will  be  convenient 
to  use  "home"  as  a  general  expression  for  that  lim- 
ited group  of  human  beings  who  share  the  board  and 
lodging  of  the  growing  imperial  citizen,  and  whose 
personalities  are  in  constant,  close  contact  with  his 
until  he  reaches  fifteen  or  sixteen.  Typically,  the 
chief  figures  of  this  group  are  mother,  brothers  and 
sisters,  and  father,  to  which  are  often  added  nurse- 
maid, governess,  and  other  servants.  Beyond  these 
are  playmates  again.  Beyond  these  acquaintances 
figure.     Home  has  indeed  nowadays,  in  our  world,  no 


152  Mankind  in  the  Making 

very  definite  boundaries — no  such  boundaries  as  it  has, 
for  example,  on  the  veldt.  In  the  case  of  a  growing 
number  of  English  upper  middle-class  children,  more- 
over, and  of  the  children  of  a  growing  element  in  the 
life  of  the  eastern  United  States,  the  home  functions 
are  delegated  in  a  very  large  degree  to  the  prepara- 
tory school.  It  is  a  distinction  that  needs  to  be  em- 
phasized that  many  so-called  schools  are  really  homes, 
often  very  excellent  homes,  with  which  schools,  often 
very  inefficient  schools,  are  united.  All  this  we  must 
lump  together — it  is,  indeed,  woven  together  almost 
inextricably — when  we  speak  of  home  as  a  formative 
factor.  .  .  .  The  home,  so  far  as  its  hygienic  con- 
ditions go,  we  have  already  dealt  with,  and  we  have 
dealt,  too,  with  the  great  neglected  necessity,  the  ab- 
solute necessity  if  our  peoples  are  to  keep  together,  of 
making  and  keeping  the  language  of  the  home  uni- 
form throughout  our  world-wide  community.  Purely 
intellectual  development  beyond  the  matter  of  lan- 
guage we  may  leave  for  a  space.  There  remains  the 
distinctive  mental  and  moral  function  of  the  home, 
the  determination  by  precept,  example,  and  implica- 
tion of  the  cardinal  habits  of  the  developing  citizen, 
his  general  demeanour,  his  fundamental  beliefs  about 
all  the  common  and  essential  things  of  life. 

This  group  of  people,  who  constitute  the  home,  will 
be  in  constant  reaction  upon  him.  If  as  a  whole  they 
bear  themselves  with  grace  and  serenity,  say  and  do 
kindly  things,  control  rage,  and  occupy  themselves 
constantly,  they  will  do  much  to  impose  these  qualities 


The  Modern  State  153 

upon  the  new-comer.  If  they  quarrel  one  with  an- 
other, behave  coarsely  and  spitefully,  loiter  and  lounge 
abundantly,  these  things  will  also  stamp  the  child. 
A  raging  father,  a  scared  deceitful  mother,  vulgarly 
acting,  vulgarly  thinking  friends,  all  leave  an  almost 
indelible  impress.  Precept  may  play  a  part  in  the 
home,  but  it  is  a  small  part,  unless  it  is  endorsed  by 
conduct.  What  these  people  do,  on  the  whole,  be- 
lieve in  and  act  upon,  the  child  will  tend  to  believe 
in  and  act  upon;  what  they  believe  they  believe, 
but  do  not  act  upon,  the  child  will  acquire  also  as  a 
non-operative  belief;  their  practices,  habits,  and  preju- 
dices will  be  enormously  prepotent  in  his  life.  If,  for 
example,  the  parent  talks  constantly  of  the  contempti- 
ble dirtiness  of  Boers  and  foreigners,  and  of  the  ex- 
treme beauty  of  cleanliness  and — even  obviously — 
rarely  washes,  the  child  will  grow  to  the  same  profes- 
sions and  the  same  practical  denial.  This  home  circle 
it  is  that  will  decribe  what,  in  modified  Herbartian 
phraseology,  one  may  call  the  child's  initial  circle  of 
thought;  it  is  a  circle  many  things  will  subsequently 
enlarge  and  modify,  but  of  which  they  have  the  cen- 
tering at  least  and  the  establishment  of  the  radial 
trends,  almost  beyond  redemption.  The  effect  of 
home  influence,  indeed,  constitutes  with  most  of  us  a 
sort  of  secondary  heredity,  interweaving  with,  and 
sometimes  almost  indistinguishable  from,  the  real  un- 
alterable primary  heredity,  a  moral  shaping  by  sug- 
gestion, example,  and  influence,  that  is  a  sort  of 
spiritual  parallel  to  pliysical  procreation. 


154  Mankind  in  the  Making 

It  is  not  simply  personalities  that  are  operative  in 
the  home  influence.  There  is  also  the  implications  of 
the  various  relations  between  one  member  of  the  home 
circle  and  another.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the 
social  conceptions,  for  example,  that  are  accepted  in  a 
child's  home  world  are  very  rarely  shaken  in  after- 
life. People  who  have  been  brought  up  in  households 
where  there  is  an  organized  under-world  of  servants 
are  incurably  different  in  their  social  outlook  from 
those  who  have  passed  a  servantless  childhood.  They 
never  quite  emancipate  themselves  from  the  concep- 
tion of  an  essential  class  difference,  of  a  class  of  be- 
ings inferior  to  themselves.  They  may  theorise  about 
equality — but  theory  is  not  belief.  They  will  do  a 
hundred  things  to  servants  that  between  equals  would 
be,  for  various  reasons,  impossible.  The  English- 
woman and  the  Anglicised  American  woman  of  the 
more  pretentious  classes  honestly  regards  a  servant 
as  physically,  morally,  and  intellectually  different 
from  herself,  capable  of  things  that  would  be  incredi- 
bly arduous  to  a  lady,  capable  of  things  that  would  be 
incredibly  disgraceful,  under  obligations  of  conduct  no 
lady  observes,  incapable  of  the  refinement  to  which 
every  lady  pretends.  It  is  one  of  the  most  amazing 
aspects  of  contemporary  life,  to  converse  with  some 
smart,  affected,  profoundly  uneducated,  flirtatious 
woman  about  her  housemaid's  followers.  There  is 
such  an  identity ;  there  is  such  an  abyss.  But  at  pres- 
ent that  contrast  is  not  our  concern.  Our  concern  at 
present  is  with  the  fact  that  the  social  constitution  of 


The  Modern  State  155 

the  home  almost  invariably  shapes  the  fundamental 
social  conceptions  for  life,  just  as  its  average  tempera- 
ment shapes  manners  and  bearing  and  its  moral  tone 
begets  moral  predisposition.  If  the  average  sensual 
man  of  our  civilization  is  noisy  and  undignified  in  his 
bearing,  disposed  to  insult  and  despise  those  he  be- 
lieves to  be  his  social  inferiors,  competitive  and  dis- 
obliging to  his  equals;  abject,  servile,  and  dishonest  to 
those  he  regards  as  his  betters;  if  his  wife  is  a  silly, 
shallow,  gossiping  spendthrift,  unfit  to  rear  the  chil- 
dren she  occasionally  bears,  perpetually  snubbing  social 
inferiors  and  perpetually  cringing  to  social  superiors, 
it  is  probable  that  we  have  to  blame  the  home,  not  par- 
ticularly any  specific  class  of  homes,  but  our  general 
home  atmosphere,  for  the  great  part  of  these  charac- 
teristics. If  we  would  make  the  average  man  of  the 
coming  years  gentler  in  manner,  more  deliberate  in 
judgment,  steadier  in  purpose,  upright,  considerate, 
and  free,  we  must  look  first  to  the  possibility  of  im- 
proving the  tone  and  quality  of  the  average  home. 

Now  the  substance  and  constitution  of  the  home, 
the  relations  and  order  of  its  various  members,  have 
been,  and  are,  traditional.  But  it  is  a  tradition  that 
has  always  been  capable  of  modification  in  each  gen- 
eration. In  the  unlettered,  untravelling  past,  the  fac- 
tor of  tradition  was  altogether  dominant.  Sons  and 
daughters  married  and  set  up  homes,  morally,  intel- 
lectually, economically,  like  those  of  their  parents. 
Over  great  areas  homogeneous  traditions  held,  and  it 
needed  wars  and  conquests,  or  it  needed  missionaries 


156  Mankind  in  the  Making 

and  persecutors  and  conflicts,  or  it  needed  many  gen- 
erations of  intercourse  and  filtration  before  a  new  tra- 
dition could  replace  or  graft  itself  upon  the  old.  But 
in  the  past  hundred  years  or  so  the  home  conditions  of 
the  children  of  our  English-speaking  population  have 
shown  a  disposition  to  break  from  tradition  under  in- 
fluences that  are  increasing,  and  to  become  much  more 
heterogeneous  than  were  any  home  conditions  before. 
The  ways  in  which  these  modifications  of  the  old  home 
tradition  have  arisen  will  indicate  the  means  and 
methods  by  which  further  modifications  may  be  ex- 
pected and  attempted  in  the  future. 

Modification  has  come  to  the  average  home  tradition 
through  two  distinct,  though  no  doubt  finally  interde- 
pendent channels.  The  first  of  these  channels  is  the 
channel  of  changing  economic  necessities,  using  the 
phrase  to  cover  everything  from  domestic  conveniences 
at  the  one  extreme  to  the  financial  foundation  of  the 
home  at  the  other,  and  the  next  is  the  influx  of  new 
systems  of  thought,  of  feeling,  and  of  interpretation 
about  the  general  issues  of  life. 

There  are  in  Great  Britain  three  main  interdepend- 
ent systems  of  home  tradition  undergoing  modification 
and  readjustment.  They  date  from  the  days  before 
mechanism  and  science  began  their  revolutionary  in- 
tervention in  human  affairs,  and  they  derive  from  the 
three  main  classes  of  the  old  aristocratic,  agricultural, 
and  trading  state,  namely,  the  aristocratic,  the  middle, 
and  the  labour  class.  There  are  local,  there  are  even 
racial  modifications,  there  are  minor  classes  and  sub- 


The  Modern  State  157 

species,  but  the  rough  triple  classification  will  serve. 
In  America  the  dominant  home  tradition  is  that  of  the 
transplanted  English  middle  class.  The  English  aris- 
tocratic tradition  has  flourished  and  faded  in  the  South- 
ern States;  the  British  servile  and  peasant  tradition 
has  never  found  any  growth  in  America,  and  has,  in 
the  persons  of  the  Irish  chiefly,  been  imported  in  an 
imperfect  condition,  only  to  fade.  The  various  home 
traditions  of  the  nineteenth  century  immigrants  have 
either,  if  widely  different,  succumbed,  or  if  not  very 
different  assimilated  themselves  to  the  ruling  tradi- 
tion. The  most  marked  non-British  influence  has 
been  the  intermixture  of  Teutonic  Protestantism.  In 
both  countries  now  the  old  home  traditions  have  been 
and  are  being  adjusted  to  and  modified  by  the  new 
classes,  with  new  relationships  and  new  necessities, 
that  the  revolution  in  industrial  organization  and  do- 
mestic conveniences  has  created. 

The  interplay  of  old  tradition  and  new  necessities 
becomes  at  times  very  curious.  Consider,  for  exam- 
ple, the  home  influences  of  the  child  of  a  shopman  in 
a  large  store,  or  those  of  the  child  of  a  skilled  operative 
— an  engineer  of  some  sort  let  us  say — in  England. 
Both  these  are  new  types  in  the  English  social  body; 
the  former  derives  from  the  old  middle  class,  the  class 
that  was  shopkeeping  in  the  towns  and  farming  in  the 
country,  the  class  of  the  Puritans,  the  Quakers,  the 
first  manufacturers,  the  class  whose  mentally  active 
members  become  the  dissenters,  the  old  Liberals,  and 
the  original  New  Englanders.     The  growth  of  large 


158  Mankind  in  the  Making 

businesses  has  raised  a  portion  of  this  class  to  the  posi- 
tion of  Sir  John  Blundell  Maple,  Sir  Thomas  Lipton, 
the  intimate  friend  of  our  King,  and  our  brewer  peers ; 
it  has  raised  a  rather  more  numerous  section  to  the 
red  plush  glories  of  Wagon-Lit  trains  and  their  social 
and  domestic  equivalents,  and  it  has  reduced  the  bulk 
of  the  class  to  the  status  of  employees  for  life.  But 
the  tradition  that  our  English  shopman  is  in  the  same 
class  as  his  master,  that  he  has  been  apprentice  and 
improver,  and  is  now  assistant,  with  a  view  to  pres- 
ently being  a  master  himself,  still  throws  its  glamour 
over  his  life  and  his  home,  and  his  child's  upbringing. 
They  belong  to  the  middle  class,  the  black  coat  and 
silk-hat  class,  and  the  silk  hat  crowns  the  adolescence 
of  their  boys  as  inevitably  as  the  toga  made  men  in 
ancient  Rome.  Their  house  is  built,  not  for  con- 
venience primarily,  but  to  realize  whatever  conven- 
ience is  possible  after  the  rigid  traditional  require- 
ments have  been  met ;  it  is  the  extreme  and  final  re- 
duction of  the  plan  of  a  better  class  house,  and  the 
very  type  of  its  owner.  As  one  sees  it  in  the  London 
suburbs  devoted  to  clerks  and  shopmen,  it  stands  back 
a  yard  or  so  from  the  road,  with  a  gate  and  a  railing, 
and  a  patch,  perhaps  two  feet  wide,  of  gravel  between 
its  front  and  the  pavement.  This  is  the  last  pathetic 
vestige  of  the  preliminary  privacies  of  its  original 
type,  the  gates,  the  drive-up,  the  front  lawn,  the  shady 
trees,  that  gave  a  great  impressive  margin  to  the  door. 
The  door  has  a  knocker  (with  an  appeal  to  realities, 
"ring  also")  and  it  opens  into  a  narrow  passage,  per- 


The  Modern  State  159 

haps  four  feet  wide,  which  still  retains  the  title  of 
"hall."  Oak  staining  on  the  woodwork  and  marbled 
paper  accentuate  the  lordly  memory.  People  of  this 
class  would  rather  die  than  live  in  a  house  with  a 
front  door,  even  had  it  a  draught-stopping  inner  door, 
that  gave  upon  the  street.  Instead  of  an  ample 
kitchen  in  which  meals  can  be  taken  and  one  other 
room  in  which  the  rest  of  life  goes  on,  these  two  cov- 
ering the  house  site,  the  social  distinction  from  the 
servant  invades  the  house  space  first  by  necessitating 
a  passage  to  a  side-door,  and  secondly  by  cutting  up 
the  interior  into  a  "dining-room"  and  a  "drawing- 
room."  Economy  of  fuel  throughout  the  winter  and 
economy  of  the  best  furniture  always,  keeps  the  fam- 
ily in  the  dining-room  pretty  constantly,  but  there  you 
have  the  drawing-room  as  a  concrete  fact.  Though 
the  drawing-room  is  inevitable,  the  family  will  man- 
age without  a  bath-room  well  enough.  They  may,  or 
they  may  not,  occasionally  wash  all  over.  There  are 
probably  not  fifty  books  in  the  house,  but  a  daily  paper 
comes  and  Tit  Bits  or  Pearson's  Weekly,  or,  perhaps, 
M.A.P.,  Modern  Society,  or  some  such  illuminant  of 
the  upper  circles,  and  a  cheap  fashion  paper,  appear  at 
irregular  intervals  to  supplement  this  literature. 

The  wife  lives  to  realize  the  ideal  of  the  "ladylike" 
— lady  she  resigns  to  the  patrician — and  she  insists 
upon  a  servant,  however  small.  This  poor  wretch  of 
a  servant,  often  a  mere  child  of  fourteen  or  fifteen, 
lives  by  herself  in  a  minute  kitchen,  and  sleeps  in  a 
fireless  attic.     To  escape  vulgar  associates,  the  chil- 


i6o  Mankind  in  the  Making 

dren  of  the  house  avoid  the  elementary  schools — the 
schools  called  in  America  public  schools — where  there 
are  trained,  efficient  teachers,  good  apparatus,  and  an 
atmosphere  of  industry,  and  go  to  one  of  those 
wretched  dens  of  disorderly  imposture,  a  middle-class 
school,  where  an  absolute  failure  to  train  or  educate 
is  seasoned  with  religious  cant,  lessons  in  piano-play- 
ing, lessons  in  French  "made  in  England,"  mortar- 
board caps  for  the  boys,  and  a  high  social  tone.  And 
to  emphasize  the  fact  of  its  social  position,  this  book- 
less, bathless  family  tips!  The  plumber  touches  his 
hat  for  a  tip,  the  man  who  moves  the  furniture,  the 
butcher-boy  at  Christmas,  the  dustman ;  these  things 
also,  the  respect  and  the  tip,  at  their  minimum  dimen- 
sions. Everything  is  at  its  minimum  dimensions,  it  is 
the  last  chipped,  dwarfed,  enfeebled  state  of  a  tradi- 
tion that  has,  in  its  time,  played  a  fine  part  in  the 
world.  This  much  of  honour  still  clings  to  it,  it  will 
endure  no  tip,  no  charity,  no  upper-class  control  of  its 
privacy.  This  is  the  sort  of  home  in  which  the  minds 
of  thousands  of  young  Englishmen  and  Englishwomen 
receive  their  first  indelible  impressions.  Can  one  ex- 
pect them  to  escape  the  contagion  of  its  cramped  pre- 
tentiousness, its  dingy  narrowness,  its  shy  privacy  of 
social  degradation,  its  essential  sordidness  and  ineffi- 
ciency ? 

Our  skilled  operative,  on  the  other  hand,  will  pocket 
his  tip.  He  is  on  the  other  side  of  the  boundary.  He 
presents  a  rising  element  coming  from  the  servile 
mass.     Probably  his  net  income  equals  or  exceeds  the 


The  Modem  State  i6i 

shopman's,  but  there  is  no  servant,  no  black  coat  and 
silk  hat,  no  middle-class  school  in  his  scheme  of  things. 
He  calls  the  shopman  "Sir,"  and  makes  no  struggle 
against  his  native  accent.  In  his  heart  he  despises  the 
middle  class,  the  mean  tip-givers,  and  he  is  inclined  to 
overrate  the  gentry  or  big  tippers.  He  is  much  more 
sociable,  much  noisier,  relatively  shameless,  more  in- 
telligent, more  capable,  less  restrained.  He  is  rising 
against  his  tradition,  and  almost  against  his  will. 
The  serf  still  bulks  large  in  him.  The  whole  trend 
of  circumstance  is  to  substitute  science  for  mere  rote 
skill  in  him,  to  demand  initiative  and  an  intelligent 
self-adaptation  to  new  discoveries  and  new  methods, 
to  make  him  a  professional  man  and  a  job  and  piece- 
worker after  the  fashion  of  the  great  majority  of  pro- 
fessional men.  Against  all  these  things  the  serf  ele- 
ment in  him  fights.  He  resists  education  and  clings 
to  apprenticeship,  he  fights  for  time-work,  he  obstructs 
new  inventions,  he  clings  to  the  ideal  of  short  hours, 
high  pay,  shirk  and  let  the  master  worry.  His  wife 
is  a  far  more  actual  creature  than  the  clerk's ;  she  does 
the  house  herself  in  a  rough,  effectual  fashion,  his 
children  get  far  more  food  for  mind  and  body,  and  far 
less  restraint.  You  can  tell  the  age  of  the  skilled 
operative  within  a  decade  by  the  quantity  of  books  in 
his  home ;  the  younger  he  is  the  more  numerous  these 
are  likely  to  be.  And  the  younger  he  is  the  more 
likely  he  is  to  be  alive  to  certain  general  views  about 
his  rights  and  his  place  in  the  social  scale,  the  less 
readily  will  his  finger  go  to  his  cap  at  the  sight  of 


1 62  Mankind  m  the  Making 

broad-cloth,  or  his  hand  to  the  proffered  half-crown. 
He  will  have  listened  to  Trade  Union  organizers  and 
Socialist  speakers ;  he  will  have  read  the  special  papers 
of  his  class.  The  whole  of  this  home  is,  in  comparison 
with  the  shopman's,  wide  open  to  new  influences. 
The  children  go  to  a  Board  School,  and  very  probably 
afterwards  to  evening  classes — or  music-halls.  Here 
again  is  a  new  type  of  home,  in  which  the  English  of 
1920  are  being  made  in  thousands,  and  which  is 
forced  a  little  way  up  the  intellectual  and  moral  scale 
every  year,  a  little  further  from  its  original  conception 
of  labour,  dependence,  irresponsibility,  and  servility. 
Compare,  again,  the  home  conditions  of  the  child 
of  a  well-connected  British  shareholder  inheriting,  let 
us  say,  seven  or  eight  hundred  a  year,  with  the  home 
of  exactly  the  same  sort  of  person  deriving  from  the 
middle  class.  On  the  one  hand,  one  will  find  the  old 
aristocratic  British  tradition  in  an  instructively  dis- 
torted state.  All  the  assumptions  of  an  essential  lord- 
liness remain — and  none  of  the  duties.  All  the  pride 
is  there  still,  but  it  is  cramped,  querulous,  and  undig- 
nified. That  lordliness  is  so  ample  that  for  even  a 
small  family  the  income  I  have  named  will  be  no  more 
than  biting  poverty,  there  will  be  a  pervading  quality 
of  struggle  in  this  home  to  avoid  work,  to  frame  ar- 
rangements, to  discover  cheap,  loyal  servants  of  the 
old  type,  to  discover  six  per  cent,  investments  without 
risk,  to  interest  influential  connections  in  the  prospects 
of  the  children.  The  tradition  of  the  ruling  class, 
which  sees  in  the  public  service  a  pension  scheme  for 


The  Modem  State  163 

poor  relations,  will  glow  with  all  the  colours  of  hope. 
Great  sacrifices  will  be  made  to  get  the  boys  to  public 
schools,  where  they  can  revive  and  expand  the  family 
connections.  They  will  look  forward  as  a  matter  of 
course  to  positions  and  appointments,  for  the  want  of 
which  men  of  gifts  and  capacity  from  other  social 
strata  will  break  their  hearts,  and  they  will  fill  these 
coveted  places  with  a  languid,  discontented  incapacity. 
Great  difficulty  will  be  experienced  in  finding  schools 
for  the  girls  from  which  the  offspring  of  tradesmen  are 
excluded.  Vulgarity  has  to  be  jealously  anticipated. 
In  a  period  when  Smartness  (as  distinguished  from 
Vulgarity)  is  becoming  an  ideal,  this  demands  at 
times  extremely  subtle  discrimination.  The  art  of 
credit  will  be  developed  to  a  high  level.    .    .    . 

Now  in  the  other  family  economically  indistinguish- 
able from  this,  a  family  with  seven  or  eight  hundred  a 
year  from  investments,  which  derives  from  the  middle 
class,  the  tradition  is  one  that,  in  spite  of  the  essential 
irresponsibility  of  the  economic  position,  will  urge  this 
family  towards  exertion  as  a  duty.  As  a  rule  the  re- 
sultant lies  in  the  direction  of  pleasant,  not  too  arduous 
exertion,  the  arts  are  attacked  with  great  earnestness 
of  intention,  literature,  "movements"  of  many  sorts 
are  ingredients  in  these  homes.  Many  things  that 
are  imperative  to  the  aristocratic  home  are  regarded 
as  needless,  and  in  their  place  appear  other  things  that 
the  aristocrat  would  despise,  books,  instruction,  travel 
in  incorrect  parts  of  the  world,  games,  that  most  se- 
ductive development  of  modern  life,  played  to  the  pitch 


164  Mankind  in  the  Making 

of  distinction.  Into  both  these  homes  comes  litera- 
ture, comes  the  Press,  comes  the  talk  of  alien  minds, 
comes  the  observation  of  things  without,  sometimes 
reinforcing  the  tradition,  sometimes  insidiously  gloss- 
ing upon  it  or  undermining  it,  sometimes  "letting  day- 
light through  it" ;  but  much  more  into  the  latter  type 
than  into  the  former.  And  slowly  the  two  funda- 
mentally identical  things  tend  to  assimilate  their  su- 
perficial difference,  to  homologize  their  traditions,  each 
generation  sees  a  relaxation  of  the  aristocratic  prohibi- 
tions, a  "gentleman"  may  tout  for  wines  nowadays — 
among  gentlemen — he  may  be  a  journalist,  a  fashion- 
able artist,  a  schoolmaster,  his  sisters  may  "act," 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  each  generation  of  the  ex- 
commercial  shareholder  reaches  out  more  earnestly 
towards  refinement,  towards  tone  and  quality,  towards 
etiquette,  and  away  from  what  is  "common"  in  life. 

So  in  these  typical  cases  one  follows  the  strands  of 
tradition  into  the  new  conditions,  the  new  homes  of 
our  modern  state.  In  America  one  finds  exactly  the 
same  new  elements  shaped  by  quite  parallel  economic 
developments,  shopmen  in  a  large  store,  skilled  oper- 
atives, and  independent  shareholders  developing 
homes  not  out  of  a  triple  strand  of  tradition,  but  out 
of  the  predominant  home  tradition  of  an  emancipated 
middle  class,  and  in  a  widely  different  atmosphere  of 
thought  and  suggestion.  As  a  consequence,  one  finds, 
I  am  told,  a  skilled  operative  already  with  no  eye  (or 
only  an  angry  eye)  for  tips,  sociable  shopmen,  and 
shareholding  families,  frankly  common,  frankly  intel- 


The  Modern  State  165 

ligent,  frankly  hedonistic,  or  only  with  the  most  naive 
and  superficial  imitation  of  the  haughty  incapacity,  the 
mean  pride,  the  parasitic  lordliness  of  the  just-inde- 
pendent, well-connected  English. 

These  rough  indications  of  four  social  types  will 
illustrate  the  quality  of  our  proposition,  that  home  in- 
fluence in  the  making  of  men  resolves  itself  into  an  in- 
terplay of  one  substantial  and  two  modifying  elements, 
namely : — 

(i)  Tradition. 

(2)  Economic  conditions. 

(3)  New  ideas,  suggestions,  interpretations,  changes 
in  the  general  atmosphere  of  thought  in  which  a  man 
lives  and  which  he  mentally  breathes. 

The  net  sum  of  which  three  factors  becomes  the 
tradition  for  the  next  generation. 

Both  the  modifying  elements  admit  of  control. 
How  the  economic  conditions  of  homes  may  be  con- 
trolled to  accomplish  New  Republican  ends  has  al- 
ready been  discussed  with  a  view  to  a  hygienic  mini- 
mum, and  obviously  the  same,  or  similar,  methods 
may  be  employed  to  secure  less  materialistic  benefits. 
You  can  make  a  people  dirty  by  denying  them  water, 
you  can  make  a  people  cleaner  by  cheapening  and  en- 
forcing bath-rooms.  Man  is  indeed  so  spiritual  a  be- 
ing that  he  will  turn  every  materialistic  development 
you  force  upon  him  into  spiritual  growth.  You  can 
aerate  his  house,  not  only  with  air,  but  with  ideas. 
Build,  cheapen,  render  alluring  a  simpler,  more  spa- 
cious type  of  house  for  the  clerk,  fill  it  with  labour- 


1 66         Mankind  in  the  Making 

saving  conveniences,  and  leave  no  excuse  and  no  spare 
corners  for  the  "slavey,"  and  the  slavey — and  all  that 
she  means  in  mental  and  moral  consequence — will 
vanish  out  of  being.  You  will  beat  tradition.  Make 
it  easy  for  Trade  Unions  to  press  for  shorter  hours  of 
work,  but  make  it  difficult  for  them  to  obstruct  the 
arrival  of  labour-saving  appliances,  put  the  means  of 
education  easily  within  the  reach  of  every  workman, 
make  promotion  from  the  ranks,  in  the  Army,  in  the 
Navy,  in  all  business  concerns,  practicable  and  natural, 
and  the  lingering  discolouration  of  the  serf  taint  will 
vanish  from  the  workman's  mind.  The  days  of  mys- 
tic individualism  have  passed,  few  people  nowadays 
will  agree  to  that  strange  creed  that  we  must  deal  with 
economic  conditions  as  though  they  were  inflexible 
laws.  Economic  conditions  are  made  and  compact  of 
the  human  will,  and  by  tariffs,  by  trade  regulation  and 
organization,  fresh  strands  of  will  may  be  woven  into 
the  complex.  The  thing  may  be  extraordinarily  in- 
tricate and  difficult,  abounding  in  unknown  possibili- 
ties and  unsuspected  dangers,  but  that  is  a  plea  for 
science  and  not  for  despair. 

Controllable,  too,  is  the  influx  of  modifying  sugges- 
tions into  our  homes,  however  vast  and  subtle  the 
enterprise  may  seem.  But  here  we  touch  for  the  first 
time  a  question  that  we  shall  now  continue  to  touch 
upon  at  other  points,  until  at  last  we  shall  clear  it  and 
display  it  as  the  necessarily  central  question  of  the 
whole  matter  of  man-making  so  far  as  the  human  will 
is  concerned,  and  that  is  the  preservation  and  expan- 


The  Modern  State  167 

sion  of  the  body  of  human  thought  and  imagination, 
of  which  all  conscious  human  will  and  act  is  but  the 
imperfect  expression  and  realization,  of  which  all 
human  institutions  and  contrivances,  from  the  steam- 
engine  to  the  ploughed  field,  and  from  the  blue  pill  to 
the  printing  press,  are  no  more  than  the  imperfect 
symbols,  the  rude  mnemonics  and  memoranda.    .    .    . 

But  this  analysis  of  the  modifying  factors  in  the 
home  influence,  this  formulation  of  its  controllable  ele- 
ments, has  now  gone  as  far  as  the  purpose  of  this 
paper  requires.  It  has  worked  out  to  this,  that  the 
home,  so  far  as  it  is  not  traditional  organization,  is 
really  only  on  the  one  hand  an  aspect  of  the  general 
economic  condition  of  the  state,  and  on  the  other  of 
that  still  more  fundamental  thing,  its  general  atmos- 
phere of  thought.  Our  analysis  refers  back  the  man- 
maker  to  these  two  questions.  The  home,  one  gath- 
ers, is  not  to  be  dealt  with  separately  or  simply.  Nor, 
on  the  other  hand,  are  these  questions  to  be  dealt  with 
merely  in  relation  to  their  home  application.  As  the 
citizen  grows  up,  he  presently  emerges  from  his  home 
influences  to  a  more  direct  and  general  contact  with 
these  two  things,  with  the  Fact  of  the  modern  state 
and  with  the  Thought  of  the  modern  state,  and  we 
must  consider  each  of  these  in  relation  to  his  develop- 
ment as  a  whole. 

The  next  group  of  elements  in  the  man-making 
complex  that  occurs  to  one  after  the  home,  is  the 
school.  Let  me  repeat  a  distinction  already  drawn 
between  the  home  element  in  boarding-schools  and  the 


1 68  Mankind  in  the  Making 

school  proper.  While  the  child  is  out  of  the  school- 
room, playing — except  when  it  is  drilling  or  playing 
under  direction — when  it  is  talking  with  its  playmates, 
walking,  sleeping,  eating,  it  is  under  those  influences 
that  it  has  been  convenient  for  me  to  speak  of  as  the 
home  influence.  The  schoolmaster  who  takes  board- 
ers is,  I  hold,  merely  a  substitute  for  the  parent,  the 
household  of  boarders  merely  a  substitute  for  the  fam- 
ily. What  is  meant  by  school  here,  is  that  which  is 
possessed  in  common  by  day  school  and  boarding- 
school — the  schoolroom  and  the  recess  playground 
part.  It  is  something  which  the  savage  and  the  bar- 
barian distinctively  do  not  possess  as  a  phase  in  their 
making,  and  scarcely  even  its  rudimentary  suggestion. 
It  is  a  new  element  correlated  with  the  establishment 
of  a  wider  political  order  and  with  the  use  of  written 
speech. 

Now  I  think  it  will  be  generally  conceded  that  what- 
ever systematic  intellectual  training  the  developing 
citizen  gets,  as  distinguished  from  his  natural,  acci- 
dental, and  incidental  development,  is  got  in  school 
or  in  its  subsequent  development  of  college,  and  with 
that  I  will  put  aside  the  question  of  intellectual  devel- 
opment altogether  for  a  later,  fuller  discussion.  My 
point  here  is  simply  to  note  the  school  as  a  factor  in 
the  making  of  almost  every  citizen  in  the  modern  state, 
and  to  point  out,  what  is  sometimes  disregarded,  that 
it  is  only  one  of  many  factors  in  that  making.  The 
tendency  of  the  present  time  is  enormously  to  exag- 
gerate the  importance  of  school  in   development,  to 


The  Modern  State  169 

ascribe  to  it  powers  quite  beyond  its  utmost  possibili- 
ties, and  to  blame  it  for  evils  in  which  it  has  no  share. 
And  in  the  most  preposterous  invasions  of  the  duties 
of  parent,  clergyman,  statesman,  author,  journalist,  of 
duties  which  are  in  truth  scarcely  more  within  the 
province  of  a  schoolmaster  than  they  are  within  the 
province  of  a  butcher,  the  real  and  necessary  work  of 
the  school  is  too  often  marred,  crippled,  and  lost  sight 
of  altogether.  We  treat  the  complex,  difficult  and 
honourable  task  of  intellectual  development  as  if  it 
were  within  the  capacity  of  any  earnest  but  muddle- 
headed  young  lady,  or  any  half-educated  gentleman  in 
orders;  we  take  that  for  granted,  and  we  demand  in 
addition  from  them  the  "formation  of  character," 
moral  and  ethical  training  and  supervision,  aesthetic 
guidance,  the  implanting  of  a  taste  for  the  Best  in 
literature,  for  the  Best  in  art,  for  the  finest  conduct; 
we  demand  the  clue  to  success  in  commerce  and  the 
seeds  of  a  fine  passionate  patriotism  from  these  neces- 
sarily very  ordinary  persons. 

One  might  think  schoolmasters  and  schoolmistresses 
were  inaccessible  to  general  observation  in  the  face  of 
these  stupendous  demands.  If  we  exacted  such  things 
from  our  butcher  over  and  above  good  service  in  his 
trade,  if  we  insisted  that  his  meat  should  not  only 
build  up  honest  nerve  and  muscle,  but  that  it  should 
compensate  for  all  that  was  slovenly  in  our  homes,  dis- 
honest in  our  economic  conditions,  and  slack  and  vul- 
gar in  our  public  life,  he  would  very  probably  say  that 
it  took  him  all  his  time  to  supply  sound  meat,  that  it 


170  Mankind  in  the  Making 

was  a  difficult  and  honourable  thing  to  supply  sound 
meat,  that  the  slackness  of  business-men  and  states- 
men in  the  country,  the  condition  of  the  arts  and  sci- 
ences, wasn't  his  business,  that  however  lamentable 
the  disorders  of  the  state,  there  was  no  reasonable 
prospect  of  improving  it  by  upsetting  the  distribution 
of  meat,  and,  in  short,  that  he  was  a  butcher  and  not 
a  Cosmos-healing  quack.  "You  must  have  meat,"  he 
would  say,  "anyhow."  But  the  average  schoolmas- 
ter and  schoolmistress  does  not  do  things  in  that  way. 

What  a  school  may  do  for  the  developing  citizen, 
the  original  and  the  developed  function  of  the  school, 
and  how  its  true  work  may  best  be  accomplished,  we 
shall  discuss  later.  But  it  may  be  well  to  expand  a 
little  more  fully  here  the  account  of  what  the  school 
has  no  business  to  attempt,  and  what  the  scholastic 
profession  is,  as  a  whole,  quite  incapable  of  doing,  and 
to  point  to  the  really  responsible  agencies  in  each  case. 

Now,  firstly,  with  regard  to  all  that  the  schoolmaster 
and  schoolmistress  means  by  the  "formation  of  char- 
acter." A  large  proportion  of  the  scholastic  profes- 
sion will  profess,  and  a  still  larger  proportion  of  the 
public  believes,  that  it  is  possible  by  talk  and  specially 
designed  instruction,  to  give  a  boy  or  girl  a  definite 
bias  towards  "truth,"  towards  acts  called  "healthy"  (a 
word  it  would  puzzle  the  ordinary  schoolmaster  or 
schoolmistress  extremely  to  define,  glib  as  they  are 
with  it),  towards  honour,  towards  generosity,  enter- 
prise, self-reliance,  and  the  like.  The  masters  in  our 
public  schools  are  far  from  blameless  in  this  respect, 


The  Modern  State  171 

and  you  may  gauge  the  quality  of  many  of  these  gen- 
tlemen pretty  precisely  by  their  disposition  towards 
the  "school  pulpit"  line  of  business.  Half  an  hour's 
"straight  talk  to  the  boys,"  impromptu  vague  senti- 
mentality about  Earnestness,  Thoroughness,  True 
Patriotism,  and  so  forth,  seems  to  assuage  the  con- 
science as  nothing  else  could  do,  for  weeks  of  ill-pre- 
pared, ill-planned  teaching,  and  years  of  preoccupation 
with  rowing-boats  and  cricket.  The  more  extreme 
examples  of  this  type  will  say  in  a  tone  of  manly 
apology,  "It  does  the  boys  good  to  tell  them  plainly 
what  I  think  about  serious  things" — when  the  simple 
fact  of  the  case  is  too  often  that  he  does  air  he  can 
not  to  think  about  any  things  of  any  sort  whatever, 
except  cricket  and  promotion.  .  .  .  Schoolmis- 
tresses, again,  will  sometimes  come  near  boasting  to 
the  inquiring  parent  of  our  "ethical  hour,"  and  if  you 
probe  the  facts  you  will  find  that  means  no  more  and 
no  less  than  an  hour  of  floundering  egotism,  in  which 
a  poor  illogical  soul,  with  a  sort  of  naive  indecency, 
talks  nonsense  about  "Ideals,"  about  the  Higher  and 
the  Better,  about  Purity,  and  about  many  secret  and 
sacred  things,  things  upon  which  wise  men  are  often 
profoundly  uncertain,  to  incredulous  or  imitative  chil- 
dren. All  that  is  needed  to  do  this  sort  of  thing 
abundantly  and  freely  is  a  certain  degree  of  aggressive 
egotism,  a  certain  gift  of  stupidity,  good  intentions, 
and  a  defective  sense  of  educational  possibilities  and 
limitations.     .     .     . 

In  addition  to  moral  discussions,  that  at  the  best  are 


172  Mankind  in  the  Making 

very  second-rate  eloquence,  and  at  the  worst  are  re- 
spect destroying,  mind  destroying  gabble,  there  are 
various  forms  of  "ethical"  teaching,  advocated  and 
practised  in  America  and  in  the  elementary  schools  of 
this  country.  For  example,  a  story  of  an  edifying 
sort  is  told  to  the  children,  and  comments  are  elicited 
upon  the  behaviour  of  the  characters.  "Would  you 
have  done  that?"  "Oh,  no,  teacher!"  "Why  not?" 
"Because  it  would  be  mean."  The  teacher  goes  into 
particulars,  whittling  away  at  the  verdict,  and  at  last 
the  fine  point  of  the  lesson  stands  out.  .  .  .  Now 
it  may  be  indisputable  that  such  lessons  can  be  con- 
ducted effectively  and  successfully  by  exceptionally 
brilliant  teachers,  that  children  may  be  given  an  ex- 
cellent code  of  good  intentions,  and  a  wonderful  skill 
in  the  research  for  good  or  bad  motives  for  any  given 
course  of  action  they  may  or  may  not  want  to  take, 
but  that  they  can  be  systematically  trained  by  the  aver- 
age teacher  at  our  disposal  in  this  desirable  "subject" 
is  quite  another  question.  It  is  one  of  the  things  that 
the  educational  reformer  must  guard  against  most 
earnestly,  the  persuasion  that  what  an  exceptional  man 
can  do  ever  and  again  for  display  purposes  can  be 
done  successfully  day  by  day  in  schools.  This  applies 
to  many  other  things  besides  the  teaching  of  ethics. 
Professor  Armstrong  can  give  delightfully  instructive 
lessons  in  chemistry  according  to  the  heuristic  method, 
but  in  the  hands  of  the  average  teacher  by  whom 
teaching  must  be  done  for  the  next  few  years  the 
heuristic  system  will  result  in  nothing  but  a  pointless 


The  Modern  State  173 

fumble.  Mr.  Mackinder  teaches  geography — inimita- 
bly— just  to  show  how  to  do  it.  Mr.  David  Devant — 
the  brilliant  Egyptian  Hall  conjuror — will  show  any 
assembly  of  parents  how  to  amuse  children  quite 
easily,  but  for  some  reason  he  does  not  present 
his  legerdemain  as  a  new  discovery  in  educational 
method. 

To  our  argument  that  this  sort  of  teaching  is  not 
within  the  capacity  of  such  teachers  as  we  have,  or 
are  likely  to  have,  we  can,  fortunately  enough,  add 
that  whatever  is  attempted  can  be  done  far  better 
through  other  agencies.  More  or  less  unknown  to 
teachers  there  exists  a  considerable  amount  of  well- 
written  literature,  true  stories  and  fiction,  in  which, 
without  any  clumsy  insistence  upon  moral  points,  fine 
actions  are  displayed  in  their  elementary  fineness,  and 
baseness  is  seen  to  be  base.  There  are  also  a  few 
theatres,  and  there  might  be  more,  in  which  fine  action 
is  finely  displayed.  Now  one  nobly  conceived  and  nobly 
rendered  play  will  give  a  stronger  moral  impression 
than  the  best  schoolmaster  conceivable,  talking  ethics 
for  a  year  on  end.  One  great  and  stirring  book  may 
give  an  impression  less  powerful,  perhaps,  but  even 
more  permanent.  Practically  these  things  are  as  good 
as  example — they  are  example.  Surround  your  grow- 
ing boy  or  girl  with  a  generous  supply  of  good  books, 
and  leave  writer  and  growing  soul  to  do  their  business 
together  without  any  scholastic  control  of  their  inter- 
course. Make  your  state  healthy,  your  economic  life 
healthy  and  honest,  be  honest  and  truthful  in  the  pul- 


174  Mankind  in  the  Making 

pit,  behind  the  counter,  in  the  office,  and  your  children 
will  need  no  specific  ethical  teaching;  they  will  inhale 
right.  And  without  these  things  all  the  ethical  teach- 
ing in  the  world  will  only  sour  to  cant  at  the  first  wind 
of  the  breath  of  the  world. 

Quite  without  ethical  pretension  at  all  the  school  is 
of  course  bound  to  influence  the  moral  development 
of  the  child.  That  most  important  matter,  the  habit 
and  disposition  towards  industry,  should  be  acquired 
there,  the  sense  of  thoroughness  in  execution,  the  pro- 
found belief  that  difficulty  is  bound  to  yield  to  a 
resolute  attack — all  these  things  are  the  necessary  by- 
products of  a  good  school.  A  teacher  who  is  punc- 
tual, persistent,  just,  who  tells  the  truth,  and  insists 
upon  the  truth,  who  is  truthful,  not  merely  technically 
but  in  a  constant  search  for  exact  expression,  whose 
own  share  of  the  school  work  is  faultlessly  done,  who 
is  tolerant  to  effort  and  a  tireless  helper,  who  is  obvi- 
ously more  interested  in  serious  work  than  in  puerile 
games,  will  beget  essential  manliness  in  every  boy  he 
teaches.  He  need  not  lecture  on  his  virtues.  A 
slack,  emotional,  unpunctual,  inexact,  and  illogical 
teacher,  a  fawning  loyalist,  an  incredible  pietist,  an 
energetic  snob,  a  teacher  as  eager  for  games,  as  sensi- 
tive to  social  status,  as  easy,  kindly,  and  sentimental, 
and  as  shy  really  of  hard  toil  as — as  some  teachers — 
is  none  the  better  for  ethical  flatulence.  There  is  a 
good  deal  of  cant  in  certain  educational  circles,  there 
is  a  certain  type  of  educational  writing  in  which 
"love"  is  altogether  too  strongly  present ;  a  reasonably 


The  Modem  State  175 

extensive  observation  of  school-children  and  school- 
teachers makes  one  doubt  whether  there  is  ever  any- 
thing more  than  a  very  temperate  affection  and  a  still 
more  temperate  admiration  on  either  side.  Children 
see  through  their  teachers  amazingly,  and  what  they 
do  not  understand  now  they  will  understand  later. 
For  a  teacher  to  lay  hands  on  all  the  virtues,  to  asso- 
ciate them  with  his  or  her  personality,  to  smear  char- 
acteristic phrases  and  expressions  over  them,  is  as 
likely  as  not  to  give  the  virtues  unpleasant  associa- 
tions. Better  far,  save  through  practice,  to  leave 
them  alone  altogether. 

And  what  is  here  said  of  this  tainting  of  moral  in- 
struction with  the  personality  of  the  teacher  applies 
still  more  forcibly  to  religious  instruction.  Here, 
however,  I  enter  upon  a  field  where  I  am  anxious  to 
avoid  dispute.  To  my  mind  those  ideas  and  emotions 
that  centre  about  the  idea  of  God  appear  at  once  too 
great  and  remote,  and  too  intimate  and  subtle  for  ob- 
jective treatment.  But  there  are  a  great  number  of 
people,  unfortunately,  who  regard  religion  as  no  more 
than  geography,  who  believe  that  it  can  be  got  into 
daily  lessons  of  one  hour,  and  adequately  done  by 
any  poor  soul  who  has  been  frightened  into  conformity 
by  the  fear  of  dismissal.  And  having  this  knobby, 
portable  creed,  and  believing  sincerely  that  lip  con- 
formity is  alone  necessary  to  salvation,  they  want  to 
force  every  teacher  they  can  to  acquire  and  impart  its 
indestructible,  inflexible  recipes,  and  they  are  prepared 
to  enforce  this  at  the  price  of  inefficiency  in  every  other 


176  Mankind  in  the  Making 

school  function.  We  must  all  agree — whatever  we 
believe  or  disbelieve — that  religion  is  the  crown  of  the 
edifice  we  build.  But  it  will  simply  ruin  a  vital  part 
of  the  edifice  and  misuse  our  religion  very  greatly  if 
we  hand  it  over  to  the  excavators  and  bricklayers  of 
the  mind,  to  use  as  a  cheap  substitute  for  the  proper 
intellectual  and  ethical  foundations;  for  the  ethical 
foundation  which  is  schooling  and  the  ethical  founda- 
tion which  is  habit.  I  must  confess  that  there  is  only 
one  sort  of  man  whose  insistence  upon  religious  teach- 
ing in  schools  by  ordinary  school  teachers  I  can  under- 
stand, and  that  is  the  downright  Atheist,  the  man  who 
believes  sensual  pleasure  is  all  that  there  is  of  pleasure, 
and  virtue  no  more  than  a  hood  to  check  the  impetu- 
osity of  youth  until  discretion  is  acquired,  the  man 
who  believes  there  is  nothing  else  in  the  world  but 
hard  material  fact,  and  who  has  as  much  respect  for 
truth  and  religion  as  he  has  for  stable  manure.  Such 
a  man  finds  it  convenient  to  profess  a  lax  version  of 
the  popular  religion,  and  he  usually  does  so,  and  in- 
variably he  wants  his  children  "taught"  religion,  be- 
cause he  so  utterly  disbelieves  in  God,  goodness,  and 
spirituality  that  he  cannot  imagine  young  people  doing 
even  enough  right  to  keep  healthy  and  prosperous,  un- 
less they  are  humbugged  into  it.    .    .    . 

Equally  unnecessary  is  the  scholastic  attempt  to  take 
over  the  relations  of  the  child  to  "nature,"  art,  and 
literature.  To  read  the  educational  journals,  to  hear 
the  scholastic  enthusiast,  one  would  think  that  no 
human  being  would  ever  discover  there  was  any  such 


The  Modern  State  177 

thing  as  "nature"  were  it  not  for  the  schoolmaster — 
and  quotation  from  Wordsworth.  And  this  nature, 
as  they  present  it,  is  really  not  nature  at  all,  but  a  facti- 
tious admiration  for  certain  isolated  aspects  of  the 
universe  conventionally  regarded  as  "natural."  Few 
schoolmasters  have  discovered  that  for  every  individual 
there  are  certain  aspects  of  the  universe  that  especially 
appeal,  and  that  that  appeal  is  part  of  the  individuality 
— different  from  every  human  being,  and  quite  outside 
their  range.  Certain  things  that  have  been  rather  well 
treated  by  poets  and  artists  (for  the  most  part  dead 
and  of  Academic  standing)  they  regard  as  Nature,  and 
all  the  rest  of  the  world,  most  of  the  world  in  which 
we  live,  as  being  in  some  way  an  intrusion  upon  this 
classic.  They  propound  a  wanton  and  illogical  canon. 
Trees,  rivers,  flowers,  birds,  stars — are,  and  have  been 
for  many  centuries  Nature — so  are  ploughed  fields — 
really  the  most  artificial  of  all  things — and  all  the  ap- 
paratus of  the  agriculturist,  cattle,  vermin,  weeds, 
weed-fires,  and  all  the  rest  of  it.  A  grassy  old  em- 
bankment to  protect  low-lying  fields  is  Nature,  and  so 
is  all  the  mass  of  apparatus  about  a  water-mill ;  a  new 
embankment  to  store  an  urban  water  supply,  though 
it  may  be  one  mass  of  splendid  weeds,  is  artificial,  and 
ugly.  A  wooden  windmill  is  Nature  and  beautiful,  a 
sky-sign  atrocious.  Mountains  have  become  Nature 
and  beautiful  within  the  last  hundred  years — volcanoes 
even.  Vesuvius,  for  example,  is  grand  and  beautiful, 
its  smell  of  underground  railway  most  impressive,  its 
night  effect  stupendous,  but  the  glowing  cinder  heaps 


lyS  Mankmd  in  the  Making 

of  Burslem,  the  wonders  of  the  Black  Country  sunset, 
the  wonderful  fire-shot  nightfall  of  the  Five  Towns, 
these  things  are  horrid  and  offensive  and  vulgar  be- 
yond the  powers  of  scholastic  language.  Such  a  mass 
of  clotted  inconsistencies,  such  a  wild  confusion  of 
vicious  mental  practices  as  this,  is  the  stuff  the  school- 
master has  in  mind  when  he  talks  of  children  acquir- 
ing a  love  of  Nature.  They  are  to  be  trained,  against 
all  their  mental  bias,  to  observe  and  quote  about  the 
canonical  natural  objects  and  not  to  observe,  but  in- 
stead to  shun  and  contemn  everything  outside  the 
canon,  and  so  to  hand  on  the  orthodox  Love  of  Na- 
ture to  another  generation.  One  may  present  the 
triumph  of  scholastic  nature-teaching,  by  the  figure  of 
a  little  child  hurr^-ing  to  school  along  the  ways  of  a 
busy  modern  town.  She  carries  a  faded  cut-flower, 
got  at  considerable  cost  from  a  botanical  garden,  and 
as  she  goes  she  counts  its  petals,  its  stamens,  its  brac- 
teoles.  Her  love  of  Nature,  her  "powers  of  observa- 
tion," are  being  trained.  About  her,  all  unheeded,  is 
a  wonderful  life  that  she  would  be  intent  upon  but 
for  this  precious  training  of  her  mind ;  great  electric 
trains  loom  wonderfully  round  corners,  go  droning  by, 
spitting  fire  from  their  overhead  wires ;  great  shop 
windows  display  a  multitudinous  variety  of  objects; 
men  and  women  come  and  go  about  a  thousand  busi- 
nesses; a  street-organ  splashes  a  spray  of  notes  at 
her  as  she  passes,  a  hoarding  splashes  a  spray  of 
colour.     .    .     . 

The  shape  and  direction  of  one's  private  observa- 


The  Modern  State  179 

tion  is  no  more  the  schoolmaster's  business  than  the 
shape  and  direction  of  one's  nose.  It  is,  indeed,  pos- 
sible to  certain  gifted  and  exceptional  persons  that  they 
should  not  only  see  acutely,  but  abstract  and  express 
again  what  they  have  seen.  Such  people  are  artists — 
a  different  kind  of  people  from  schoolmasters  alto- 
gether. Into  all  sorts  of  places,  where  people  have 
failed  to  see,  comes  the  artist  like  a  light.  The  artist 
cannot  create  nor  can  he  determine  the  observation  of 
other  men,  but  he  can,  at  any  rate,  help  and  inspire  it. 
But  he  and  the  pedagogue  are  temperamentally  differ- 
ent and  apart.  They  are  at  opposite  poles  of  human 
quality.  The  pedagogue  with  his  canon  comes  be- 
tween the  child  and  Nature  only  to  limit  and  obscure. 
His  business  is  to  leave  the  whole  thing  alone. 

If  the  interpretation  of  nature  is  a  rare  and  peculiar 
gift,  the  interpretation  of  art  and  literature  is  surely 
an  even  rarer  thing.  Hundreds  of  schoolmasters  and 
schoolmistresses  who  could  not  write  one  tolerable  line 
of  criticism,  will  stand  up  in  front  of  classes  by  the 
hour  together  and  issue  judgments  on  books,  pictures, 
and  all  that  is  comprised  under  the  name  of  art.  Think 
of  it!  Here  is  your  great  artist,  your  great  excep- 
tional mind  groping  in  the  darknesses  beneath  the  sur- 
face of  life,  half  apprehending  strange  elusive  things 
in  those  profundities,  and  striving — striving  some- 
times to  the  utmost  verge  of  human  endeavour — to 
give  that  strange  unsuspected  mystery  expression,  to 
shape  it,  to  shadow  it  in  form  and  wonder  of  colour, 
in  beautiful   rhythms,   in  phantasies  of  narrative,  in 


i8o  Mankind  in  the  Making 

gracious  and  glowing  words.  So  much  in  its  essen- 
tial and  precious  degree  is  art.  Think  of  what  the 
world  must  be  in  the  wider  vision  of  the  great  artist. 
Think,  for  example,  of  the  dark  splendours  amidst 
which  the  mind  of  Leonardo  clambered ;  the  mirror  of 
tender  lights  that  reflected  into  our  world  the  irides- 
cent graciousness  of  Botticelli !  Then  to  the  faint  and 
faded  intimations  these  great  men  have  left  us  of  the 
things  beyond  our  scope,  comes  the  scholastic  intelli- 
gence, gesticulating  instructively,  and  in  too  many 
cases  obscuring  for  ever  the  na'ive  vision  of  the  child. 
The  scholastic  intelligence,  succulently  appreciative, 
blind,  hopelessly  blind  to  the  fact  that  every  great 
work  of  art  is  a  strenuous,  an  almost  despairing  effort 
to  express  and  convey,  treats  the  whole  thing  as  some 
foolish  riddle — "explains  it  to  the  children."  As  if 
every  picture  was  a  rebus  and  every  poem  a  charade! 
"Little  children,"  he  says,  "this  teaches  you" — and  out 
comes  the  platitude! 

Of  late  years,  in  Great  Britain  more  particularly, 
the  School  has  been  called  upon  to  conquer  still  other 
fields.  It  has  become  apparent  that  in  this  monarchy 
of  ours,  in  which  honour  is  heaped  high  upon  money- 
making,  even  if  it  is  money-making  that  adds  nothing 
to  the  collective  wealth  or  efficiency,  and  denied  to  the 
most  splendid  public  services  unless  they  are  also  re- 
munerative; where  public  applause  is  the  meed  of 
cricketers,  hostile  guerillas,  clamorous  authors,  yacht- 
racing  grocers,  and  hopelessly  incapable  generals,  and 
where  suspicion  and  ridicule  are  the  lot  of  every  man 


The  Modern  State  i8i 

working  hard  and  living  hard  for  any  end  beyond  a 
cabman's  understanding;  in  this  world-wide  Empire 
whose  Government  is  entrusted  as  a  matter  of  course 
to  peers  and  denied  as  a  matter  of  course  to  any  man 
of  humble  origin;  where  social  pressure  of  the  most 
urgent  kind  compels  every  capable  business  manager 
to  sell  out  to  a  company  and  become  a  "gentleman"  at 
the  very  earliest  opportunity,  the  national  energy  is 
falling  away.  That  driving  zeal,  that  practical  vigour 
that  once  distinguished  the  English  is  continually  less 
apparent.  Our  workmen  take  no  pride  in  their  work 
any  longer,  they  shirk  toil  and  gamble.  And  what  is 
worse,  the  master  takes  no  pride  in  the  works;  he,  too, 
shirks  toil  and  gambles.  Our  middle-class  young 
men,  instead  of  flinging  themselves  into  study,  into 
research,  into  literature,  into  widely  conceived  busi- 
ness enterprises,  into  so  much  of  the  public  service  as 
is  not  preserved  for  the  sons  of  the  well  connected, 
play  games,  display  an  almost  oriental  slackness  in  the 
presence  of  work  and  duty,  and  seem  to  consider  it 
rather  good  form  to  do  so.  And  seeking  for  some 
reason  and  some  remedy  for  this  remarkable  phenom- 
enon, a  number  of  patriotic  gentlemen  have  discovered 
that  the  Schools,  the  Schools  are  to  blame.  Some- 
thing in  the  nature  of  Reform  has  to  be  waved  over 
our  schools.     .     .     . 

It  would  be  a  wicked  deed  to  write  anything  that 
might  seem  to  imply  that  our  Schools  were  not  in 
need  of  very  extensive  reforms,  or  that  their  efficiency 
is  not  a  necessary  preliminary  condition  to  general 


1 82  Mankind  in  the  Making 

public  efficiency,  but,  indeed,  the  Schools  are  only  one 
factor  in  a  great  interplay  of  causes,  and  the  remedy 
is  a  much  ampler  problem  than  any  Education  Act 
will  cure.  Take  a  typical  young  Englishman,  for  ex- 
ample, one  who  has  recently  emerged  from  one  of  our 
public  schools,  one  of  the  sort  of  young  Englishmen 
for  whom  all  commissions  in  the  Army  are  practically 
reserved,  who  will  own  some  great  business,  perhaps, 
or  direct  companies,  and  worm  your  way  through  the 
tough  hide  of  style  and  restraint  he  has  acquired,  get 
him  to  talk  about  women,  about  his  prospects,  his  inti- 
mate self,  and  see  for  yourself  how  much  of  him,  and. 
how  little  of  him,  his  school  has  made.  Test  him  on 
politics,  on  the  national  future,  on  social  relationships, 
and  lead  him  if  you  can  to  an  utterance  or  so  upon 
art  and  literature.  You  will  be  astonished  how  little 
you  can  either  blame  or  praise  the  teaching  of  his 
school  for  him.  He  is  ignorant,  profoundly  ignorant, 
and  much  of  his  style  and  reserve  is  draped  over  that ; 
he  does  not  clearly  understand  what  he  reads,  and  he 
can  scarcely  write  a  letter;  he  draws,  calculates  and 
thinks  no  better  than  an  errand  boy,  and  he  has  no 
habit  of  work ;  for  that  much  perhaps  the  school  must 
answer.  And  the  school,  too,  must  answer  for  the 
fact  that  although — unless  he  is  one  of  the  small  spe- 
cialized set  who  "swat"  at  games — he  plays  cricket 
and  football  quite  without  distinction,  he  regards  these 
games  as  much  more  important  than  military  training 
and  things  of  that  sort,  spends  days  watching  his 
school  matches,  and  thumbs  and  muddles  over  the 


The  Modern  State  183 

records  of  county  cricket  to  an  amazing  extent.  But 
these  things  are  indeed  only  symptons,  and  not  essen- 
tial factors  in  general  inefficiency.  There  are  much 
wider  things  for  which  his  school  is  only  medi- 
ately or  not  at  all  to  blame.  For  example,  he  is  not 
only  ignorant  and  inefficient  and  secretly  aware  of  his 
ignorance  and  inefficiency,  but,  what  is  far  more  seri- 
ous, he  does  not  feel  any  strong  desire  to  alter  the 
fact;  he  is  not  only  without  the  habit  of  regular  work, 
but  he  does  not  feel  the  defect  because  he  has  no  desire 
whatever  to  do  anything  that  requires  work  in  the  do- 
ing. And  you  will  find  that  this  is  so  because  there 
is  woven  into  the  tissue  of  his  being  a  profound  belief 
that  work  and  knowledge  "do  not  pay,"  that  they  are 
rather  ugly  and  vulgar  characteristics,  and  that  they 
make  neither  for  happiness  nor  success. 

He  did  not  learn  that  at  school,  nor  at  school  was 
it  possible  he  should  unlearn  it.  He  acquired  that 
belief  from  his  home,  from  the  conversation  of  his 
equals,  from  the  behaviour  of  his  inferiors;  he  found 
it  in  the  books  and  newspapers  he  has  read,  he  breathed 
it  in  with  his  native  air.  He  regards  it  as  manifest 
Fact  in  the  life  about  him.  And  he  is  perfectly  right. 
He  lives  in  a  country  where  stupidity  is,  so  to  speak, 
crowned  and  throned,  and  where  honour  is  a  means  of 
exchange;  and  he  draws  his  simple,  straight  conclu- 
sions. The  much-castigated  gentleman  with  the 
ferule  is  largely  innocent  in  this  account. 

If,  too,  you  ransack  your  young  Englishman  for 
religion,  you  will  be  amazed  to  find  scarcely  a  trace 


184  Mankind  in  the  Making 

of  School.  In  spite  of  a  ceremonial  adhesion  to  the 
religion  of  his  fathers,  you  will  find  nothing  but  a  pro- 
found agnosticism.  He  has  not  even  the  faith  to  dis- 
believe. It  is  not  so  much  that  he  has  not  developed 
religion  as  that  the  place  has  been  seared.  In  his  time 
his  boyish  heart  has  had  its  stirrings,  he  has  responded 
with  the  others  to  "Onward,  Christian  Soldiers,"  the 
earnest  moments  of  the  school  pulpit,  and  all  those 
first  vague  things.  But  limited  as  his  reading  is,  it 
has  not  been  so  limited  that  he  does  not  know  that 
very  grave  things  have  happened  in  matters  of  faith, 
that  the  doctrinal  schemes  of  the  conventional  faith 
are  riddled  targets,  that  creed  and  Bible  do  not  mean 
what  they  appear  to  mean,  but  something  quite  differ- 
ent and  indefinable,  that  the  bishops,  socially  so  much 
in  evidence,  are  intellectually  in  hiding.    .    .    . 

Here  again  is  something  the  school  did  not  cause, 
the  school  cannot  cure. 

And  in  matters  sexual,  in  matters  political,  in  mat- 
ters social,  and  matters  financial  you  will  find  that  the 
flabby,  narrow-chested,  under-trained  mind  that  hides 
in  the  excellent-looking  body  of  the  typical  young 
Englishman  is  encumbered  with  an  elaborate  duplicity. 
Under  the  cloak  of  a  fine  tradition  of  good  form  and 
fair  appearances  you  will  find  some  intricate  disbe- 
liefs, some  odd  practices.  You  will  trace  his  moral 
code  chiefly  to  his  school-fellows,  and  the  intimates  of 
his  early  manhood,  and  could  you  trace  it  back  you 
would  follow  an  unbroken  tradition  from  the  days  of 
the  Restoration.     So  soon  as  he  pierces  into  the  reali- 


The  Modern  State  185 

ties  of  the  life  about  him,  he  finds  enforcement,  ample 
and  complete,  for  the  secret  code.  The  schoolmaster 
has  not  touched  it;  the  school  pulpit  has  boomed  over 
its  development  in  vain.  Nor  has  the  schoolmaster 
done  anything  for  or  against  the  young  man's  political 
views,  his  ideas  of  social  exclusiveness,  the  peculiar 
code  of  honour  that  makes  it  disgraceful  to  bilk  a  cab- 
man and  permissible  to  obtain  goods  on  credit  from  a 
tradesman  without  the  means  to  pay.  All  this  much 
of  the  artificial  element  in  our  young  English  gentle- 
man was  made  outside  the  school,  and  is  to  be  rem- 
edied only  by  extra-scholastic  forces. 

School  is  only  one  necessary  strand  in  an  enormous 
body  of  formative  influence.  At  first  that  mass  of 
formative  influence  takes  the  outline  of  the  home,  but 
it  broadens  out  as  the  citizen  grows  until  it  reaches  the 
limits  of  his  world.  And  his  world,  just  like  his  home, 
resolves  itself  into  three  main  elements.  First,  there 
is  the  traditional  element,  the  creation  of  the  past; 
secondly,  there  is  the  contemporary  interplay  of 
economic  and  material  forces;  and  thirdly,  there  is 
literature,  using  that  word  for  the  current  thought 
about  the  world,  which  is  perpetually  tending  on  the 
one  hand  to  realize  itself  and  to  become  in  that  man- 
ner a  material  force,  and  on  the  other  to  impose  fresh 
interpretations  upon  things  and  so  become  a  factor  in 
tradition.  Now  the  first  of  these  elements  is  a  thing 
established.  And  it  is  the  possibility  of  intervening 
through  the  remaining  two  that  it  is  now  our  business 
to  discuss. 


VI 

Schooling 

We  left  the  child  whose  development  threads  through 
this  discussion  ripe  to  begin  a  little  schooling  at  the 
age  of  five.  We  have  cleared  the  ground  since  then 
of  a  great  number  of  things  that  have  got  themselves 
mixed  up  in  an  illegitimate  way  with  the  idea  of 
school,  and  we  can  now  take  him  on  again  through 
his  "schooling"  phases.  Let  us  begin  by  asking  what 
we  require  and  then  look  to  existing  conditions  to  see 
how  far  we  may  hope  to  get  our  requirements.  We 
will  assume  the  foundation  described  in  the  fourth 
paper  has  been  well  and  truly  laid,  that  we  have  a 
number  of  other  similarly  prepared  children  available 
to  form  a  school,  and  that  w-e  have  also  teachers  of 
fair  average  intelligence,  conscience,  and  aptitude.  We 
will  ask  what  can  be  done  with  such  children  and 
teachers,  and  then  we  may  ask  why  it  is  not  universally 
done. 

Even  after  our  clarifying  discussion,  in  which  we 
have  shown  that  schooling  is  only  a  part,  and  by  no 
means  the  major  part,  of  the  educational  process,  and 
in  which  we  have  distinguished  and  separated  the 
home  element  in  the  boarding-school  from  the  school- 
ing proper,  there  still  remains  something  more  than  a 

186 


Schooling  187 

simple  theme  in  schooling.  After  all  these  eliminations 
we  remain  with  a  mixed  function  and  mixed  traditions, 
and  it  is  necessary  now  to  look  a  little  into  the  nature 
of  this  mixture. 

The  modern  school  is  not  a  thing  that  has  evolved 
from  a  simple  germ,  by  a  mere  process  of  expansion. 
It  is  the  coalescence  of  several  things.  In  different 
countries  and  periods  you  will  find  schools  taking  over 
this  function  and  throwing  out  that,  and  changing  not 
only  methods  but  professions  and  aims  in  the  most 
remarkable  manner.  What  has  either  been  teachable 
or  has  seemed  teachable  in  human  development  has 
played  a  part  in  some  curriculum  or  other.  Beyond 
the  fact  that  there  is  class  instruction  and  an  initial 
stage  in  which  the  pupil  learns  to  read  and  write,  there 
is  barely  anything  in  common.  But  that  initial  stage 
is  to  be  noted;  it  is  the  thing  the  Hebrew  schoolboy, 
the  Tamil  schoolboy,  the  Chinese  schoolboy,  and  the 
American  schoolboy  have  in  common.  So  much,  at 
any  rate,  of  the  school  appears  wherever  there  is  a 
written  language,  and  its  presence  marks  a  stage  in 
the  civilizing  process.  As  I  have  already  pointed  out 
in  my  book  ''Anticipations,"  the  presence  of  a  reading 
and  writing  class  of  society  and  the  existence  of  an 
organized  nation  (as  distinguished  from  a  tribe)  ap- 
pear together.  When  tribes  coalesce  into  nations, 
schools  appear.  This  first  and  most  universal  function 
of  the  school  is  to  initiate  a  smaller  or  greater  pro- 
portion of  the  population  into  the  ampler  world,  the 
more  efficient  methods,   of  the  reading  and   writing 


1 88  Mankind  in  the  Making 

man.  And  with  the  disappearance  of  the  slave  and  the 
mere  labourer  from  the  modern  conception  of  what  is 
necessary  in  the  state,  there  has  now  come  about  an 
extension  of  this  initiation  to  the  whole  of  our  English- 
speaking  population.  And  in  addition  to  reading  and 
writing  the  vernacular,  there  is  also  almost  universally 
in  schools  instruction  in  counting,  and  wherever  there 
is  a  coinage,  in  the  values  and  simpler  computation  of 
coins. 

In  addition  to  the  vernacular  teaching,  one  finds  in 
the  schools — at  any  rate  the  schools  for  males — over 
a  large  part  of  the  world,  a  second  element,  which 
is  always  the  language  of  what  either  is  or  has  been  a 
higher  and  usually  a  dominant  civilization.  Typically, 
there  is  a  low  or  imitative  vernacular  literature  or  no 
literature  at  all,  and  this  second  language  is  the  key 
to  all  that  literature  involves — general  views,  general 
ideas,  science,  poetic  suggestion  and  association. 
Through  this  language  the  vernacular  citizen  escapes 
from  his  parochial  and  national  limitations  to  a  wide 
commonweal  of  thought.  Such  was  Greek  at  one 
time  to  the  Roman,  such  was  Latin  to  the  Bohemian, 
the  German,  the  Englishman  or  the  Spaniard  of  the 
middle  ages,  and  such  it  is  to-day  to  the  Roman  Cath- 
olic priest;  such  is  Arabic  to  the  Malay,  written 
Chinese  to  the  Cantonese  or  the  Corean,  and  English 
to  the  Zulu  or  the  Hindoo.  In  Germany  and  France, 
to  a  lesser  degree  in  Great  Britain,  and  to  a  still  lesser 
degree  in  the  United  States,  we  find,  however,  an 
anomalous   condition   of   things.      In   each   of   these 


Schooling  189 

countries  civilization  has  long  since  passed  into  an 
unprecedented  phase,  and  each  of  these  countries  has 
long  since  developed  a  great  living  mass  of  literature 
in  which  its  new  problems  are,  at  any  rate,  ap- 
proached. There  is  scarcely  a  work  left  in  Latin  or 
Greek  that  has  not  been  translated  into  and  assimi- 
lated and  more  or  less  completely  superseded  by 
English,  French,  and  German  works;  but  the  school- 
master, heedless  of  these  things,  still  arrests  the  pupil 
at  the  old  portal,  fumbles  with  the  keys,  and  partially 
opens  the  door  into  a  ransacked  treasure-chamber. 
The  language  of  literature  and  of  civilized  ideas  is, 
for  the  English-speaking  world  to-day,  English — not 
the  weak,  spoken  dialect  of  each  class  and  locality,  but 
the  rich  and  splendid  language  in  which  and  with 
which  our  literature  and  philosophy  grow.  That,  how- 
ever, is  by  the  way.  Our  point  at  present  is  that  the 
exhaustive  teaching  of  a  language  so  that  it  may  serve 
as  a  key  t6  culture  is  a  second  function  in  the  school. 

We  find  in  a  broad  survey  of  schools  in  general  that 
there  has  also  been  a  disposition  to  develop  a  special 
training  in  thought  and  expression  either  in  the  mother 
tongue  (as  in  the  Roman  schools  of  Latin  oratory), 
or  in  the  culture  tongue  (as  in  Roman  schools  of 
Greek  oratory),  and  we  find  the  same  element  in  the 
mediaeval  trivium.  Quintilian's  conception  of  educa- 
tion, the  reader  will  remember,  was  oratory.  This 
aspect  of  school  work  was  the  traditional  and  logical 
development  of  the  culture  language-teaching.  But 
as  in  Europe  the  culture  language  has  ceased  to  be 


190  Mankind  in  the  Making 

really  a  culture  language  but  merely  a  reasonless  sur- 
vival, and  its  teaching  has  degenerated  more  and  more 
into  elaborate  formalities  supposed  to  have  in  some 
mystical  way  "high  educational  value,"  and  for  the 
most  part  conducted  by  men  unable  either  to  write  or 
speak  the  culture  language  with  any  freedom  or 
vigour,  this  crown  of  cultivated  expression  has  become 
more  and  more  inaccessible.  It  is  too  manifestly 
stupid — even  for  our  public  schoolmasters — to  think 
of  carrying  the  "classical  grind"  to  that  pitch,  and,  in 
fact,  they  carry  no  part  of  the  education  to  that  pitch. 
There  is  no  deliberate  and  professed  training  at  all  in 
logical  thought — except  for  the  use  of  Euclid's  Ele- 
ments to  that  end — nor  in  expression  in  any  language 
at  all,  in  the  great  mass  of  modern  schools.  This  is  a 
very  notable  point  about  the  schools  of  the  present 
period. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  schools  of  the  modern 
period  have  developed  masses  of  instruction  that  were 
not  to  be  found  in  the  schools  of  the  past.  The  school 
has  reached  downward  and  taken  over,  systematized, 
and  on  the  whole,  I  think,  improved  that  preliminary 
training  of  the  senses  and  the  observation  that  was 
once  left  to  the  spontaneous  activity  of  the  child  among 
its  playmates  and  at  home.  The  kindergarten  depart- 
ment of  a  school  is  a  thing  added  to  the  old  conception 
of  schooling,  a  conversion  of  the  all  too  ample  school 
hours  to  complete  and  rectify  the  work  of  the  home,  to 
make  sure  of  the  foundation  of  sense  impressions  and 
elementary    capabilities    upon    which    the    edifice    of 


Schooling  1 9 1 

schooling  is  to  rise.  In  America  it  has  grown,  as  a 
wild  flower  transferred  to  the  unaccustomed  richness 
of  garden  soil  will  sometimes  do,  rankly  and  in  rela- 
tion to  the  more  essential  schooling,  aggressively,  and 
become  a  highly  vigorous  and  picturesque  weed.  One 
must  bear  in  mind  that  Froebel's  original  thought  was 
rather  of  the  mother  than  of  the  schoolmistress,  a  fact 
the  kindergarten  invaders  of  the  school  find  it  con- 
venient to  forget.  I  believe  we  shall  be  carrying  out 
his  intentions  as  well  as  the  manifest  dictates  of  com- 
mon sense  if  we  do  all  in  our  power  by  means  of 
simply  and  clearly  written  books  for  nurses  and 
mothers  to  shift  very  much  of  the  kindergarten  back 
to  home  and  playroom  and  out  of  the  school  altogether. 
Correlated  with  this  development,  there  has  been  a 
very  great  growth  in  our  schools  of  what  is  called 
manual  training  and  of  the  teaching  of  drawing. 
Neither  of  these  subjects  entered  into  the  school  idea 
of  any  former  period,  so  far  as  my  not  very  extensive 
knowledge  of  educational  history  goes. 

Modern,  too,  is  the  development  of  efficient  mathe- 
matical teaching ;  so  modern  that  for  too  many  schools 
it  is  still  a  thing  of  to-morrow.  The  arithmetic  (with- 
out Arabic  numerals,  be  it  remembered)  and  the 
geometry  of  the  mediaeval  quadrivium  were  aston- 
ishingly clumsy  and  ineffectual  instruments  in  com- 
parison with  the  apparatus  of  modern  mathematical 
method.  And  while  the  mathematical  subjects  of  the 
quadrivium  were  taught  as  science  and  for  their  own 
sakes,  the  new  mathematics  is  a  sort  of  supplement  to 


192  Mankind  in  the  Making 

language,  affording  a  means  of  thought  about  form 
and  quantity  and  a  means  of  expression,  more  exact, 
compact,  and  ready  than  ordinary  language.  The 
great  body  of  physical  science,  a  great  deal  of  the 
essential  fact  of  financial  science,  and  endless  social 
and  political  problems  are  only  accessible  and  only 
thinkable  to  those  who  have  had  a  sound  training  in 
mathematical  analysis,  and  the  time  may  not  be  very 
remote  when  it  will  be  understood  that  for  complete 
initiation  as  an  efficient  citizen  of  one  of  the  new  great 
complex  world-wide  states  that  are  now  developing, 
it  is  as  necessary  to  be  able  to  compute,  to  think  in 
averages  and  maxima  and  minima,  as  it  is  now  to  be 
able  to  read  and  write.  This  development  of  mathe- 
matical teaching  is  only  another  aspect  of  the  necessity 
that  is  bringing  the  teaching  of  drawing  into  schools, 
the  necessity  that  is  so  widely,  if  not  always  very  in- 
telligently perceived,  of  clearheadedness  about  quantity, 
relative  quantity,  and  form,  that  our  highly  mechan- 
ical, widely  extended,  and  still  rapidly  extending 
environments  involve. 

Arithmetic  and  geometry  were  taught  in  the  me- 
diaeval school  as  sciences,  in  addition  the  quadrivium 
involved  the  science  of  astronomy,  and  now  that  the 
necessary  fertilizing  inundation  of  our  general  educa- 
tion by  the  classical  languages  and  their  literatures 
subsides,  science  of  a  new  sort  reappears  in  our  schools. 
I  must  confess  that  a  lot  of  the  science  teaching  that 
appears  in  schools  nowadays  impresses  me  as  being  a 
very  undesirable  encumbrance  of  the  curriculum.    The 


Schooling  193 

schoolman's  science  came  after  the  training  in  lan- 
guage and  expression,  late  in  the  educational  scheme, 
and  it  aimed,  it  pretended — whatever  its  final  effect 
was — to  strengthen  and  enlarge  the  mind  by  a  noble 
and  spacious  sort  of  knowledge.  But  the  science  of 
the  modern  school  pretends  merely  to  be  a  teaching  of 
useful  knowledge;  the  vistas,  the  tremendous  implica- 
tions of  modern  science  are  conscientiously  disre- 
garded, and  it  is  in  effect  too  often  no  more  than  a 
diversion  of  school  energies  to  the  acquisition  of 
imperfectly  analyzed  misstatements  about  entrails,  ele- 
ments, and  electricity,  with  a  view — a  quite  unjus- 
tifiable view — to  immediate  profitable  hygienic  and 
commercial  application.  .  .  .  Whether  there  is 
any  educational  value  in  the  school-teaching  of  science 
we  may  discuss  later.  For  the  present  we  may  note 
it  simply  as  a  revived  and  developing  element. 

On  the  other  hand,  while  these  things  expand  in 
the  modern  school,  there  are  declining  elements,  once 
in  older  schemes  of  scholastic  work  much  more  evi- 
dent. In  the  culture  of  the  mediaeval  knight,  for 
example,  and  of  the  eighteenth-century  young  lady, 
elegant  accomplishments,  taught  disconnected  from  the 
general  educational  scheme  and  for  themselves,  played 
a  large  part.  The  eighteenth-century  young  lady  was 
taught  dancing,  deportment,  several  instruments  of 
music,  how  to  pretend  to  sketch,  how  to  pretend  to 
know  Italian,  and  so  on.  The  dancing  still  survives — 
a  comical  mitigation  of  high  school  austerities — and 
there  is  also  a  considerable  interruption  of  school  work 


194  Mankind  in  the  Making 

achieved  by  the  music-master.  If  there  is  one  thing 
that  I  would  say  with  certainty  has  no  business  what- 
ever in  schools,  it  is  piano-teaching.  The  elementary 
justification  of  the  school  is  its  organization  for  class- 
teaching  and  work  in  unison,  and  there  is  probably  no 
subject  of  instruction  that  requires  individual  tuition 
quite  so  imperatively  as  piano-playing ;  there  is  no  sub- 
ject so  disadvantageously  introduced  where  children 
are  gathered  together.  But  to  every  preparatory  and 
girls'  school  in  England — I  do  not  know  if  the  same 
thing  happens  in  America — the  music-master  comes 
once  or  twice  a  week,  and  with  a  fine  disregard  of 
the  elementary  necessities  of  teaching,  children  are 
called  one  by  one,  out  of  whatever  class  they  happen 
to  be  attending,  to  have  their  music-lesson.  Either 
the  whole  of  the  rest  of  the  class  must  mark  time  at 
some  unnecessary  exercise  until  the  missing  member 
returns,  or  one  child  must  miss  some  stage,  some  ex- 
planation that  will  involve  a  weakness,  a  lameness  for 
the  rest  of  the  course  of  instruction.  .  .  .  Not 
only  is  the  actual  music-lesson  a  nuisance  in  this  way, 
but  all  day  the  school  air  is  loaded  with  the  oppressive 
tinkling  of  racked  and  rackety  pianos.  Nothing,  I 
think,  could  be  more  indicative  of  the  real  value  the 
English  school-proprietor  sets  on  school-teaching  than 
this  easy  admission  of  the  music-master  to  hack  and 
riddle  the  curriculum  into  rags.^     .     .     .     Apart  from 

'  Piano  playing  as  an  accomplishment  is  a  nuisance  and  encumbrance 
to  the  school  course  and  a  specialization  that  surely  lies  within  the 
private  Home  province.     To  learn  to  play  the  piano  projjerly  demands 


Schooling  195 

the  piano  work,  the  special  teaching  of  elegant  accom- 
plishments seems  just  at  present  on  the  wane.  And 
on  the  whole  I  think  what  one  might  call  useful  or 
catchpenny  accomplishments  are  also  passing  their 
zenith — shorthand  lessons,  book-keeping  lessons,  and 
such-like  impostures  upon  parental  credulity. 

There  is,  however,  a  thing  that  was  once  done  in 
schools  as  a  convenient  accomplishment,  and  which 
has — with  that  increase  in  communication  which  is 
the  salient  material  fact  of  the  nineteenth  century — 
developed  in  Western  Europe  to  the  dimensions  of 
a  political  necessity,  and  that  is  the  teaching  of  one 
or  more  modern  foreign  languages.  The  language- 
teaching  of  all  previous  periods  has  been  done  with 

such  an  amount  of  time  and  toil  that  I  do  not  see  how  we  can  possibly 
include  it  in  the  educational  scheme  of  the  honourable  citizens  of  the 
coming  world  state.  To  half  learn  it,  to  half  learn  anything,  is  a  training 
in  failure.  But  it  is  probable  that  a  different  sort  of  music  teaching 
altogether — a  teaching  that  would  aim,  not  at  instrumentalization,  but 
at  intelligent  appreciation — might  find  a  place  in  a  complete  educational 
scheme.  The  general  ignorance  that  pervades,  and  in  part  inspires 
these  papers,  does,  in  the  matter  of  music,  become  special,  profound, 
and  distinguished.  It  seems  to  me,  however,  that  what  the  cultivated 
man  or  woman  requires  is  the  ability  to  read  a  score  intelligently  rather 
than  to  play  it — to  distinguish  the  threads,  the  values,  of  a  musical 
composition,  to  have  a  quickened  ear  rather  than  a  disciplined  hand. 
I  owe  to  my  friend,  Mr.  Graham  Wallas,  the  suggestion  that  the  piano 
is  altogether  too  exacting  an  instrument  to  use  as  the  practical  vehicle 
for  such  instruction,  and  that  something  simpler  and  cheaper — after 
the  fashion  of  the  old  spinet — is  required.  Possibly  some  day  a  teacher 
of  genius  will  devise  and  embody  in  a  book  a  course  of  class  lessons, 
sustained  by  simple  practice  and  written  work,  that  would  attain  this 
end.  But,  indeed,  after  all  is  said  and  done,  music  is  the  most  detached 
and  the  purest  of  arts,  the  most  accessory  of  attainments. 


196  Mankind  in  the  Making 

a  view  to  culture,  artistic,  as  in  the  case  of  Eliza- 
bethan Italian,  or  intellectual  as  with  English  Latin. 
But  the  language-teaching  of  to-day  is  deliberately, 
almost  conscientiously,  not  for  culture.  It  would,  I 
am  sure,  be  a  very  painful  and  shocking  thought  in- 
deed to  an  English  parent  to  think  that  French  was 
taught  in  school  with  a  view  to  reading  French  books. 
It  is  taught  as  a  vulgar  necessity  for  purposes  of 
vulgar  communication.  The  stirring  together  of  the 
populations  that  is  going  on,  the  fashion  and  facilities 
for  travel,  the  production  of  the  radii  from  the  trading 
foci,  are  rapidly  making  a  commonplace  knowledge  of 
French,  German,  and  Italian  a  necessity  to  the  mer- 
chant and  tradesman,  and  the  ever  more  extensive 
travelling  class.  So  that  so  far  as  Europe  goes,  one 
may  very  well  regard  this  modern  modern-language 
teaching  as — with  the  modern  mathematics — an  ex- 
tension of  the  trivium,  of  the  apparatus,  that  is,  of 
thought  and  expression.^  It  is  an  extension  and  a 
very  doubtful  improvement.  It  is  a  modern  necessity, 
a  rather  irksome  necessity,  of  little  or  no  essential  edu- 
cational value,  an  unavoidable  duty  the  school  will  have 
to  perform.^ 

There  are  two  subjects  in  the  modern  English 
school  that  stand  by  themselves  and  in  contrast  with 
anything   one   finds    in    the    records   of   ancient    and 

1  In  the  United  States  there  is  less  sense  of  urgency  about  modern 
languages,  but  sooner  or  later  the  American  may  wake  up  to  the  need 
of  Spanish  in  his  educational  schemes. 

'  In  one  way  the  foreign  language  may  be  made  educationally  very 
useful,  and  that  is  as  an  exercise  in  writing  translations  into  good  English. 


Schooling  197 

oriental  schools,  as  a  very  integral  part  of  what  is 
regarded  as  our  elementary  general  education.  They 
are  of  very  doubtful  value  in  training  the  mind,  and 
most  of  the  matter  taught  is  totally  forgotten  in  adult 
life.  These  are  history  and  geography.  These  two 
subjects  constitute,  with  English  grammar  and  arith- 
metic, the  four  obligatory  subjects  for  the  very  lowest 
grade  of  the  London  College  of  Preceptors'  examina- 
tions, for  example.  The  examination  papers  of  this 
body  reveal  the  history  as  an  affair  of  dated  events,  a 
record  of  certain  wars  and  battles,  and  legislative  and 
social  matters  quite  beyond  the  scope  of  a  child's  ex- 
perience and  imagination.  Scholastic  history  ends  at 
1700  or  1800,  always  long  before  it  throws  the  faint- 
est light  upon  modern  political  or  social  conditions. 
The  geography  is,  for  the  most  part,  topography,  with 
a  smattering  of  quantitative  facts,  heights  of  moun- 
tains, for  example,  populations  of  countries,  and  lists 
of  obsolete  manufactures  and  obsolete  trade  conditions. 
Any  one  who  will  take  the  trouble  to  run  through  the 
text-books  of  these  subjects  gathered  together  in  the 
library  of  the  London  Teachers'  Guild,  will  find  that 
the  history  is  generally  taught  without  maps,  pictures, 
descriptive  passages,  or  anything  to  raise  it  above  the 
level  of  an  arid  misuse  of  memory ;  and  the  highest 
levels  to  which  ordinary  school  geography  has  attained 
are  to  be  found  in  the  little  books  of  the  late  Professor 
Meiklejohn.  These  two  subjects  are  essentially  "in- 
formation" subjects.  They  dififer  in  prestige  rather 
than  in  educational  quality  from  school  chemistry  and 


198  Mankind  in  the  Making 

natural  history,  and  their  development  marks  the 
beginning  of  that  great  accumulation  of  mere  knowl- 
edge \vhich  is  so  distinctive  of  this  present  civilization. 
There  are,  no  doubt,  many  minor  subjects,  but  this 
revision  will  at  least  serve  to  indicate  the  scope  and 
chief  varieties  of  school  work.  Out  of  some  such 
miscellany  it  is  that  in  most  cases  the  student  passes 
to  specialization,  to  a  different  and  narrower  process 
which  aims  at  a  specific  end,  to  the  course  of  the 
College.  In  some  cases  this  specialized  course  may 
be  correlated  with  a  real  and  present  practice,  as  in 
the  case  of  the  musical,  medical,  and  legal  faculties 
of  our  universities ;  it  may  be  correlated  with  obsolete 
needs  and  practices  and  regardless  of  modern  require- 
ments, as  in  the  case  of  the  student  of  divinity  who 
takes  his  orders  and  comes  into  a  world  full  of 
the  ironical  silences  that  follow  great  controversies, 
nakedly  ignorant  of  geology,  biology,  psychology,  and 
modern  biblical  criticism ;  or  it  may  have  no  definite 
relation  to  special  needs,  and  it  may  profess  to  be  an 
upward  prolongation  of  schooling  towards  a  sort  of 
general  wisdom  and  culture,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Brit- 
ish "Arts"  degrees.  The  ordinary  Oxford,  Cam- 
bridge, or  London  B.A.  has  a  useless  smattering  of 
Greek,  he  cannot  read  Latin  with  any  comfort,  much 
less  write  or  speak  that  tongue;  he  knows  a  few  un- 
edifying  facts  round  and  about  the  classical  literature, 
he  cannot  speak  or  read  French  with  any  comfort;  he 
has  an  imperfect  knowledge  of  the  English  language, 
insufficient  to  write  it  clearly,  and  none  of  German, 


Schooling  199 

he  has  a  queer,  old-fashioned,  and  quite  useless  knowl- 
edge of  certain  rudimentary  sections  of  mathematics, 
and  an  odd  little  bite  out  of  history.  He  knows  prac- 
tically nothing  of  the  world  of  thought  embodied  in 
English  literature,  and  absolutely  nothing  of  contem- 
porary thought;  he  is  totally  ignorant  of  modern 
political  or  social  science,  and  if  he  knows  anything  at 
all  about  evolutionary  science  and  heredity  it  is  prob- 
ably matter  picked  up  in  a  casual  way  from  the 
magazines.  Art  is  a  sealed  book  to  him.  Still,  the 
inapplicability  of  his  higher  education  to  any  profes- 
sional or  practical  need  in  the  world  is  sufficiently 
obvious,  it  seems,  to  justify  the  claim  that  it  has  put 
him  on  a  footing  of  thought  and  culture  above  the 
level  of  a  shopman.  It  is  either  that  or  nothing.  And 
without  deciding  between  these  alternatives,  we  may 
note  here  for  our  present  purpose,  that  the  conception 
of  a  general  upward  prolongation  of  schooling  beyond 
adolescence,  as  distinguished  from  a  specific  upward 
prolongation  into  professional  training,  is  necessary 
to  the  complete  presentation  of  the  school  and  college 
scheme  in  the  modern  state. 

There  has  always  been  a  tendency  to  utilize  the 
gathering  together  of  children  in  schools  for  purposes 
irrelevant  to  schooling  proper,  but  of  some  real  or 
fancied  benefit.  Wherever  there  is  a  priestly  religion, 
the  lower  type  of  religious  fanatic  will  always  look 
to  the  schools  as  a  means  of  doctrinal  dissemination; 
will  always  be  seeking  to  replace  efficiency  by  ortho- 
doxy   upon    staff    and    management;    and,    with    an 


200  Mankind  in  the  Making 

unconquerable,  uncompromising  persistency,  will  seek 
perpetually  either  to  misconduct  or  undermine ;  and 
the  struggle  to  get  him  out  and  keep  him  out  of  the 
school,  and  to  hold  the  school  against  him,  will  be 
one  of  the  most  necessary  and  thankless  of  New 
Republican  duties.  I  have,  however,  already  adduced 
reasons  that  I  think  should  appeal  to  every  religious 
mind,  for  the  exclusion  of  religious  teaching  from 
school  work.  The  school  gathering  also  affords  oppor- 
tunity for  training  in  simple  unifying  political  con- 
ceptions; the  salutation  of  the  flag,  for  example,  or 
of  the  idealized  effigies  of  King  and  Queen.  The 
quality  of  these  conceptions  we  shall  discuss  later. 
The  school  also  gives  scope  for  physical  training  and 
athletic  exercises  that  are,  under  the  crowded  con- 
ditions of  a  modern  town,  almost  impossible  except 
by  its  intervention.  And  it  would  be  the  cheapest  and 
easiest  way  of  raising  the  military  efficiency  of  a 
country,  and  an  excellent  thing  for  the  moral  tone  and 
public  order  of  a  people,  to  impose  upon  the  school 
gathering  half  an  hour  a  day  of  vigorous  military 
drill.  The  school,  too,  might  very  easily  be  linked 
more  closely  than  it  is  at  present  with  the  public 
library,  and  made  a  means  of  book  distribution;  and 
its  corridors  may  easily  be  utilized  as  a  loan  picture 
gallery,  in  which  good  reproductions  of  fine  pictures 
might  bring  the  silent  influence  of  the  artist  mind  to 
bear.  But  all  these  things  are  secondary  applications 
of  the  school  gathering;  at  their  best  they  are  not  con- 
ducted by  the  school-teacher  at  all,  and  I  remark  upon 


Schooling  201 

them  here  merely  to  avoid  any  confusion  their  omis- 
sion might  occasion. 

Now  if  we  dip  into  this  miscellany  of  things  that 
figure  and  have  figured  in  schools,  if  we  turn  them 
over  and  look  at  them,  and  seek  to  generalize  about 
them,  we  shall  begin  to  see  that  the  most  persistently 
present,  and  the  living  reality  of  it  all,  is  this :  to  ex- 
pand, to  add  to  and  organize  and  supplement  that 
apparatus  of  understanding  and  expression  the  savage 
possesses  in  colloquial  speech.  The  pressing  business 
of  the  school  is  to  zviden  the  range  of  intercourse}  It 
is  only  secondarily — so  far  as  schooling  goes — or,  at 
any  rate,  subsequently,  that  the  idea  of  shaping,  or,  at 
least,  helping  to  shape,  the  expanded  natural  man  into 
a  citizen,  comes  in.  It  is  only  as  a  subordinate  neces- 
sity that  the  school  is  a  vehicle  for  the  inculcation  of 
facts.  The  facts  come  into  the  school  not  for  their 
own  sake,  but  in  relation  to  intercourse.  It  is  only 
upon  a  common  foundation  of  general  knowledge  that 

'  This  way  of  putting  it  may  jar  a  little  upon  the  more  or  less  explicit 
preconceptions  of  many  readers,  who  are  in  reality  in  harmony  with  the 
tone  of  thought  of  this  paper.  They  will  have  decided  that  the  school 
work  is  to  "train  the  mind,"  to  "teach  the  pupil  to  think,"  or  upon 
some  similar  phrase.  But  I  venture  to  think  that  most  of  these  phrases 
are  at  once  too  wide  and  too  narrow.  They  are  too  wide  because  they 
ignore  the  spontaneous  activity  of  the  child  and  the  extra-scholastic 
forces  of  mind-training,  and  they  are  too  narrow  because  they  ignore 
the  fact  that  we  do  not  progress  far  with  our  thoughts  unless  we  throw 
them  out  into  objective  existence  by  means  of  words,  diagrams,  models, 
trial  essays.  Even  if  we  do  not  talk  to  others  we  must,  silently  or 
vocally  or  visibly,  talk  to  ourselves  at  least  to  get  on.  To  acquire  the 
means  of  intercourse  is  to  learn  to  think,  so  far  as  learning  goes  in  the 
matter. 


202  Mankind  in  the  Making 

the  initiated  citizens  of  an  educated  community  will 
be  able  to  communicate  freely  together.  With  the 
net  of  this  phrase,  "widening  the  range  of  intercourse," 
I  think  it  is  possible  to  gather  together  all  that  is  essen- 
tial in  the  deliberate  purpose  of  schooling.  Nothing 
that  remains  outside  is  of  sufficient  magnitude  to  be  of 
any  importance  in  the  small-scale  sketch  of  human 
development  we  are  now  making : — 

If  we  take  this  and  hold  to  it  as  a  guide,  and  explore 
a  scheme  of  school  work,  in  the  direction  it  takes  us, 
we  shall  find  it  shaping  itself  (for  an  English-speaking 
citizen)  something  after  this  fashion: — 

A.  Direct    means   of   understanding   and    ex- 
pression. 

1.  Reading. 

2.  Writing. 

3.  Pronouncing  English  correctly. 
Which  studies  will  expand  into — 

4.  A    thorough    study    of    English    as    a 

culture  language,  its  origin,  develop- 
ment, and  vocabulary,  and 

5.  A  sound  training  in  English  prose  com- 

position and  versification. 
And  in  addition — 

6.  Just  as  much  of  mathematics  as  one  can 

get  in. 

7.  Drawing  and  painting,  not  as  "art,"  but 

to  train  and  develop  the  appreciation 
of  form  and  colour,  and  as  a  collat- 
eral means  of  expression. 


Schooling  203 

8.  Music  [perhaps]  to  the  same  end. 
B.  To  speak  the  ordinary  speech,   read  with 
fair  intelligence,  and  write  in  a  passably 
intelligible  manner  the  foreign  language 
or  languages,  the  social,  political,  and  in- 
tellectual necessities  of  the  time  require. 
And  C.  A  division  arising  out  of  A  and  expanding 
in  the  later  stages  of  the  school  course 
to  continue  and  replace  A :  the  acquisition 
of  the  knowledge  (and  of  the  art  of  ac- 
quiring  further   knowledge   from   books 
and    facts)    necessary   to    participate    in 
contemporary  thought  and  life. 
Now  this  project  is  at  once  more  modest  in  form 
and   more   ambitious   in    substance  than   almost   any 
school  scheme  or  prospectus  the  reader  is  likely  to 
encounter.     Let  us   (on  the  assumption  of  our  open- 
ing paragraph)  inquire  what  is  needed  to  carry  it  into 
execution.    So  far  as  i  and  2  in  this  table  go,  we  have 
to  recognize  that  since  the  development  of  elementary 
schools  in  England  introduced  a  spirit  of  endeavour 
into  teaching,  there  has  been  a  steady  progress  in  the 
art  of  education.     Reading  and  writing  are  taught 
somehow  or  other  to  most  people  nowadays,  they  are 
frequently  taught  quickly  and  well,  especially  well,  I 
think,  in  view  of  the  raw  material,  in  many  urban 
Board  Schools  in  England,  and  there  is  nothing  to  do 
here  but  to  inquire  if  anything  can  be  done  to  make 
this  teaching,  which  is  so  exceptional  in  attaining  its 
goal,   still   quicker   and   easier,   and   in   bringing  the 


204  Mankind  in  the  Making 

average  up  to  the  level  of  the  present  best.  We  have 
already  suggested  as  the  work  of  an  imaginary  Eng- 
lish Language  Society,  how  much  might  be  done  in 
providing  everywhere,  cheaply  and  unavoidably,  the 
best  possible  reading-books,  and  it  is  manifest  that  the 
standard  of  copy-books  for  writing  might  also  be 
pressed  upward  by  similar  methods.  In  addition,  we 
have  to  consider — what  is  to  me  a  most  uncongenial 
subject — the  possible  rationalization  of  English  spell- 
ing. I  will  frankly  confess  I  know  English  as  much 
by  sight  as  by  sound,  and  that  any  extensive  or  strik- 
ing alteration,  indeed  that  almost  any  alteration,  in 
the  printed  appearance  of  English,  worries  me  ex- 
tremely. Even  such  little  things  as  Mr.  Bernard 
Shaw's  weakness  for  printing  "I've"  as  "Ive,"  and 
the  American  "favor,"  "thro,"  and  "catalog"  catch  at 
my  attention  as  it  travels  along  the  lane  of  meaning, 
like  trailing  briars.  But  I  have  to  admit  this 
habit  of  the  old  spelling,  which  I  am  sure  most  people 
over  four-and-twenty  share  with  me,  will  trouble 
neither  me  nor  any  one  else  who  reads  books  now,  in 
the  year  1990.  I  have  to  admit  that  the  thing  is  an 
accident  of  my  circumstances.  I  have  learnt  to  read 
and  write  in  a  certain  way,  and  I  am  concerned  with 
the  thing  said  and  not  with  the  vehicle,  and  so  it  is 
that  it  distresses  me  when  the  medium  behaves  in  an 
unusual  way  and  distracts  my  attention  from  the  thing 
it  conveys.  But  if  it  is  true — and  I  think  it  must  be 
true — that  the  extremely  arbitrary  spelling  of  English 
— and  more  especially  of  the  more  familiar  English 


Schooling  205 

words — greatly  increases  the  trouble  of  learning  to 
read  and  write,  I  do  not  think  the  mental  comfort  of 
one  or  two  generations  of  grown-up  people  must  be 
allowed  to  stand  in  the  way  of  a  permanent  economy 
in  the  educational  process.     I  believe  even  that  such 
a  reader  as  I  might  come  to  be  very  easy  in  the  new 
way.     But  whatever  is  done  must  be  done  widely, 
simultaneously,  all  over  the  English-speaking  commu- 
nity, and  after  the  fullest  consideration.     The  local 
"spelling    reform"    of    a    few    half-educated    faddists 
here  and  there,  helps  not  at  all,  is  a  mere  nuisance. 
This  is  a  thing  to  be  worked  out  in  a  scientific  way  by 
the  students  of  phonetics;  they  must  have  a  complete 
alphabet  settled  for  good,  a  dictionary  ready,  reading- 
books  well  tested,  the  whole  system  polished  and  near 
perfection   before   the   thing  passes   out   of   the    spe- 
cialists' hands.     The  really  practical  spelling-reformer 
will  devote  his  guineas  to  endowing  chairs  of  pho- 
netics and  supporting  publication  in  phonetic  science, 
and  his  time  to  study  and  open-minded  discussion. 
Such  organisations  as  the  Association  Phonctiqiie  In- 
ternationale, may  be  instanced.     Systems  concocted  in 
a  hurry,  in  a  half-commercial  or  wholly  commercial 
and  in  a  wholly  presumptuous  manner,  pushed  like 
religious  panaceas  and  advertised  like  soap — Pitman's 
System,  Barnum's  System,  Quackbosh  the  Gifted  Post- 
man's System,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing — do  nothing 
but  vulgarize,  discredit,  and  retard  this  work. 

Before  a  system  of  phonetic  spelling  can  be  estab- 
lished, it  is  advisable  that  a  standard  pronunciation  of 


2o6  Mankind  in  the  Making 

English  should  exist.  With  that  question  also  these 
papers  have  already  dealt.  But  for  the  sake  of  empha- 
sis I  would  repeat  here  the  astonishment  that  has 
grown  upon  me  as  I  have  given  my  mind  to  these 
things,  that,  save  for  local  exceptions,  there  should  be 
no  pressure  even  upon  those  who  desire  to  become 
teachers  in  our  schools  or  preachers  in  our  pulpits,  to 
attain  a  qualifying  minimum  of  correct  pronunciation. 
Now  directly  we  pass  beyond  these  first  three  ele- 
mentary matters,  reading,  writing,  and  pronunciation, 
and  come  to  the  fourth  and  fifth  items  of  our  scheme, 
to  the  complete  mastery  of  English  that  is,  we  come 
upon  a  difficulty  that  is  all  too  completely  disregarded 
in  educational  discussions — always  by  those  who  have 
had  no  real  scholastic  experience,  and  often  by  those 
who  ought  to  know  better.  It  is  extremely  easy  for  a 
political  speaker  or  a  city  magnate  or  a  military  re- 
former or  an  irresponsible  writer,  to  proclaim  that 
the  schoolmaster  must  mend  his  ways  forthwith,  give 
up  this  pointless  Latin  of  his,  and  teach  his  pupils  the 
English  language  ''thoroughly" — with  much  empha- 
sis on  the  "thoroughly,"  but  it  is  quite  another  thing 
for  the  schoolmaster  to  obey  our  magnificent  direc- 
tions. For  the  plain,  simple,  insurmountable  fact  is 
this,  that  no  one  knows  how  to  teach  English  as  in 
our  vague  way  we  critics  imagine  it  taught;  that  no 
working  schoolmaster  alive  can  possibly  give  the  thing 
the  concentrated  attention,  the  experimental  years  nec- 
essary for  its  development,  that  it  is  worth  nobody's 
while,  and  that    (except  in  a  vein  of  exalted  self- 


Schooling  207 

sacrifice)  it  will  probably  not  be  worth  any  one's  while 
to  do  so  for  many  years  unless  some  New  Republicans 
conspire  to  make  it  so.  The  teaching  of  English  re- 
quires its  Sturm,  its  energetic  modern  renascence 
schoolmasters,  its  set  of  school  books,  its  branches 
and  grades,  before  it  can  become  a  discipline,  even  to 
compare  with  the  only  subject  taught  with  any  shadow 
of  orderly  progressive  thoroughness  in  secondary 
schools,  namely,  Latin.  At  present  our  method  in 
English  is  a  foolish  caricature  of  the  Latin  method; 
we  spend  a  certain  amount  of  time  teaching  children 
classificatory  bosh  about  the  eight  sorts  of  Nominative 
Case,  a  certain  amount  of  time  teaching  them  the 
"derivation"  of  words  they  do  not  understand,  glance 
shyly  at  Anglo-Saxon  and  at  Grimm's  Law,  indulge 
in  a  specific  reminiscence  of  the  Latin  method  called 
parsing,  supplement  with  a  more  modern  development 
called  the  analysis  of  sentences,  give  a  course  of  exer- 
cises in  paraphrasing  ( for  the  most  part  the  conversion 
of  good  English  into  bad),  and  wind  up  with  lessons 
in  "Composition"  that  must  be  seen  to  be  believed. 
Essays  are  produced,  and  the  teacher  noses  blindly 
through  the  product  for  false  concords,  prepositions 
at  the  end  of  sentences,  and,  if  a  person  of  peculiarly 
fine  literary  quality,  for  the  word  "reliable"  and  the 
split  infinitive.  These  various  exercises  are  so  little 
parts  of  an  articulate  whole  that  they  may  be  taken  in 
almost  any  order  and  any  relative  quantity.  And  in 
the  result,  if  some  pupil  should,  by  a  happy  knack  of 
apprehension,  win  through  this  confusion  to  a  sense 


2o8  Mankind  in  the  Making 

of  literary  quality,  to  the  enterprise  of  even  trying  to 
write,  the  thing  is  so  rare  and  wonderful  that  almost 
inevitably  he  or  she,  in  a  fine  outburst  of  discovered 
genius,  takes  to  the  literary  life.  For  the  rest,  they 
will  understand  nothing  but  the  flattest  prose;  they 
will  be  deaf  to  everything  but  the  crudest  meanings; 
they  will  be  the  easy  victims  of  the  boom,  and  terribly 
shy  of  a  pen.  They  will  revere  the  dead  Great  and 
respect  the  new  Academic,  read  the  living  quack,  miss 
and  neglect  the  living  promise,  and  become  just  a  fresh 
volume  of  that  atmosphere  of  azote,  in  which  our  lit- 
erature stifles.     .     .     . 

Now  the  schoolmaster  is  not  to  blame  for  this  any 
more  than  he  is  to  blame  for  sticking  to  Latin.  It 
is  no  more  possible  for  schoolmasters  and  school- 
mistresses, whose  lives  are  encumbered  with  a  volu- 
minous mass  of  low-grade  mental  toil  and  worries  and 
reasonable  and  unreasonable  responsibilities,  to  find 
the  energy  and  mental  freedom  necessary  to  make  any 
vital  changes  in  the  methods  that  text-books,  tra- 
ditions, and  examinations  force  upon  them,  than  it  is 
for  a  general  medical  practitioner  to  invent  and  make 
out  of  the  native  ore  the  steel  implements  some  opera- 
tion of  frequent  occurrence  in  his  practice  may  de- 
mand. If  they  are  made,  and  accessible  by  purchase 
and  not  too  expensive,  he  will  get  them;  if  they  are 
not  he  will  have  to  fumble  along  with  the  next  best 
thing;  and  if  nothing  that  is  any  good  can  be  got,  then 
there  is  nothing  for  it,  though  he  be  the  noblest  char- 
acter, the  finest  intelligence  that  ever  lived  behind  a 


Schooling  209 

brass  plate,  but  either  to  shirk  that  operation  altogether 
or  to  run  the  chance  of  making  a  disastrous  mess  of  it. 
Scolding  the  schoolmaster,  gibing  at  the  schoolmas- 
ter, guying,  afflicting  and  exasperating  the  school- 
master in  every  conceivable  way,  is  an  amusement  so 
entirely  congenial  to  my  temperament  that  I  do  not 
for  one  moment  propose  to  abandon  it.  It  is  a  devil 
I  have,  and  I  admit  it.  He  insults  schoolmasters  and 
bishops  in  particular,  and  I  do  not  cast  him  out,  but 
at  the  same  time  I  would  most  earnestly  insist  that  all 
that  sort  of  thing  does  nothing  whatever  to  advance 
education,  that  it  is  a  mere  outbreak  of  personal  grace- 
notes  so  far  as  this  discussion  goes.  The  real  prac- 
tical needs  in  the  matter  are  a  properly  worked-out 
method,  a  proper  set  of  school  books,  and  then  a  pro- 
gressive alteration  of  examinations  in  English,  to 
render  that  method  and  that  set  of  school  books  im- 
perative. These  are  needs  the  schoolmaster  and 
schoolmistress  can  do  amazingly  little  to  satisfy.  Of 
course,  when  these  things  are  ready  and  the  pressure 
to  enforce  them  begins  to  tell  on  the  schools,  school- 
masters and  schoolmistresses,  having  that  almost 
instinctive  dread  of  any  sort  of  change  that  all  hard- 
worked  and  rather  worried  people  acquire,  will 
obstruct  and  have  to  be  reckoned  with,  but  that  is 
a  detail  in  the  struggle  and  not  a  question  of  general 
objective.  And  to  satisfy  those  real  practical  needs, 
what  is  wanted  is  in  the  first  place  an  organizer,  a 
reasonable  sum  of  money,  say  ten  thousand  pounds 
for  ten  years,  and  access  for  experimental  purposes  to 


2IO  Mankind  in  the  Making 

a  variety  of  schools.  This  organizer  would  set  him- 
self to  secure  the  whole  time  and  energy  and  interest 
of  a  dozen  or  so  of  good  men ;  they  would  include 
several  expert  teachers,  a  clear-headed  pedagogic  ex- 
pert or  so,  a  keen  psychologist  perhaps  with  a  pene- 
trating mind — for  example,  one  might  try  and  kidnap 
Professor  William  James  in  his  next  Sabbatical  year 
— one  or  two  industrious  young  students,  a  literary 
critic  perhaps,  a  philologist,  a  grammarian,  and  set 
them  all,  according  to  their  several  gifts  and  faculties, 
towards  this  end.  At  the  end  of  the  first  year  this 
organizer  would  print  and  publish  for  the  derision  of 
the  world  in  general  and  the  bitter  attacks  of  the  men 
he  had  omitted  from  the  enterprise  in  particular,  for 
review  in  the  newspapers  and  for  trial  in  enterprising 
schools,  a  "course"  in  the  English  language  and  com- 
position. His  team  of  collaborators,  revised  perhaps, 
probably  weeded  by  a  quarrel  or  so  and  supplemented 
by  the  ablest  of  the  hostile  critics,  would  then,  work- 
ing with  all  their  time  and  energy,  revise  the  course 
for  the  second  year.  And  you  would  repeat  the  process 
for  ten  years.  In  the  end  at  the  cost  of  £100,000 — 
really  a  quite  trivial  sum  for  the  object  in  view — there 
would  exist  the  scheme,  the  method,  the  primers  and 
text-books,  the  School  Dictionary,  the  examination 
syllabus,  and  all  that  is  now  needed  for  the  proper 
teaching  of  English.  You  would  have,  moreover,  in 
the  copyrights  of  the  course  an  asset  that  might  go 
far  to  recoup  those  who  financed  the  enterprise. 
It  is  precisely  this  difficulty  about  text-books  and 


Schooling  2 1 1 

a  general  scheme  that  is  the  real  obstacle  to  any 
material  improvement  in  our  mathematical  teaching. 
Professor  Perry,  in  his  opening  address  to  the  Engi- 
neering Section  of  the  British  Association  at  Belfast, 
expressed  an  opinion  that  the  average  boy  of  fifteen 
might  be  got  to  the  infinitesimal  calculus.  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact  the  average  English  boy  of  fifteen  has  only 
just  looked  at  elementary  algebra.  But  every  one 
who  knows  anything  of  educational  science  knows, 
that  by  the  simple  expedient  of  throwing  overboard 
all  that  non-educational,  mind-sickening  and  complex 
rubbish  about  money  and  weights  and  measures,  prac- 
tice, interest,  "rule  of  three,"  and  all  the  rest  of  the 
solemn  clap-trap  invented  by  the  masters  of  the  old 
Academy  for  Young  Gentlemen  to  fool  the  foolish 
predecessors  of  those  who  clamour  for  commercial 
education  to-day,  and  by  setting  aside  the  pretence  in 
teaching  geometry,  that  algebraic  formulae  and  the 
decimal  notation  are  not  yet  invented,  little  boys  of 
nine  may  be  got  to  apply  quadratic  equations  to  prob- 
lems, plot  endless  problems  upon  squared  paper,  and 
master  and  apply  the  geometry  covered  by  the  earlier 
books  of  Euclid  with  the  utmost  ease.  But  to  do  this 
with  a  class  of  boys  at  present  demands  so  much  spe- 
cial thought,  so  much  private  planning,  so  much  sheer 
toil  on  the  part  of  the  teacher,  that  it  becomes  practi- 
cally impossible.  The  teacher  must  arrange  the  whole 
course  himself,  invent  his  examples,  or  hunt  them 
laboriously  through  a  dozen  books ;  he  must  be  not 
only  teacher,  but  text-book.     I  know  of  no   School 


212  Mankind  in  the  Making 

Arithmetic  which  does  not  groan  under  a  weight  of 
sham  practical  work,  and  that  does  not,  with  an  absurd 
priggishness,  exclude  the  use  of  algebraic  symbols. 
Except  for  one  little  volume,  I  know  of  no  sane  book 
which  deals  with  arithmetic  and  elementary  algebra 
under  one  cover  or  gives  any  helpful  exercises  or 
examples  in  squared  paper  calculations.  Such  books, 
I  am  told,  exist  in  the  seclusion  of  publishers'  stock- 
rooms, but  if  I,  enjoying  as  I  do  much  more  leisure 
and  opportunity  of  inquiry  than  the  average  mathe- 
matical master,  cannot  get  at  them,  how  can  we  expect 
him  to  do  so?  And  the  thing  to  do  now  is  obviously 
to  discover  or  create  these  books,  and  force  them 
kindly  but  firmly  into  the  teachers'  hands. 

The  problem  is  much  simpler  in  the  case  of  mathe- 
matical teaching  than  in  the  case  of  English,  because 
the  educational  theory  and  method  have  been  more 
thoroughly  discussed.  There  is  no  need  for  the  ten 
years  of  experiment  and  trial  I  have  suggested  for  the 
organization  of  English  teaching.  The  mathematical 
reformer  may  begin  now  at  a  point  the  English  lan- 
guage reformer  will  not  reach  for  some  years.  Sup- 
pose now  a  suitably  authenticated  committee  were  to 
work  out — on  the  basis  of  Professor  Perry's  syllabus 
perhaps — a  syllabus  of  school  mathematics,  and  then 
make  a  thorough  review  of  all  the  mathematical  text- 
books on  sale  throughout  the  English-speaking  world, 
admitting  some  perhaps  as  of  real  permanent  value 
for  teaching  of  the  new  type,  provisionally  recogniz- 
ing others  as  endurable,  but  with  clear  recommenda- 


Schooling  2 1 3 

tions  for  their  revision  and  improvement,  and  con- 
demning the  others  specifically  by  name.  Let  them 
make  it  clear  that  this  syllabus  and  report  will  be  re- 
spected by  all  public  examining  bodies ;  let  them  spend 
a  hundred  pounds  or  so  in  the  intelligent  distribution 
of  their  report,  and  the  scholastic  profession  will  not 
be  long  before  it  is  equipped  with  the  recommended 
books.  Meanwhile,  the  English  and  American  scho- 
lastic publishers  will  become  extremely  active,  the 
warned  books  will  be  revised,  and  new  books  will  be 
written  in  competition  for  the  enormous  prize  of  the 
committee's  final  approval,  an  activity  that  a  second 
review,  after  an  interval  of  five  or  six  years,  will  rec- 
ognize and  reward. 

Such  measures  as  these  will  be  worth  reams  of  es- 
says in  educational  papers  and  Parents'  Reviews, 
worth  thousands  of  inspiring  and  suggestive  lectures 
at  pedagogic  conferences.  If,  indeed,  such  essays  and 
such  lectures  do  any  good  at  all.  The  more  one  looks 
into  scholastic  affairs  the  more  one  is  struck  not  only 
by  the  futility  but  the  positive  mischievousness  of  much 
of  what  passes  for  educational  liberalism.  The  school- 
master is  criticised  vehemently  for  teaching  the  one 
or  two  poor  useless  subjects  he  can  in  a  sort  of 
way  teach,  and  practically  nothing  is  done  to  help  or 
equip  him  to  teach  anything  else.  By  reason  of  this 
uproar,  the  world  is  full  now  of  anxious  muddled 
parents,  their  poor  brains  buzzing  with  echoes  of  Froe- 
bel,  Tolstoy,  Herbert  Spencer,  Ruskin,  Herbart,  Colo- 
nel  Parker,   Mr.   Harris,   Matthew  Arnold,   and  the 


214  Mankind  in  the  Making 

Morning  Post,  trying  to  find  something  better.  They 
know  nothing  of  what  is  right,  they  only  know  very, 
very  clearly  that  the  ordinary  school  is  extremely 
wrong.  They  are  quite  clear  they  don't  want  "cram" 
(though  they  haven't  the  remotest  idea  what  cram  is), 
and  they  have  a  pretty  general  persuasion  that  failure 
at  examination  is  a  good  test  of  a  sound  education. 
And  in  response  to  their  bleating  demand  there  grows 
a  fine  crop  of  Quack  Schools;  schools  organized  on 
lines  of  fantastic  extravagance,  in  which  bee-keeping 
takes  the  place  of  Latin,  and  gardening  supersedes 
mathematics,  in  which  boys  play  tennis  naked  to  be 
cured  of  False  Shame,  and  the  numerical  exercises 
called  bookkeeping  and  commercial  correspondence  are 
taught  to  the  sons  of  parents  (who  can  pay  a  hundred 
guineas  a  year),  as  Commercial  Science.  The  sub- 
jects of  study  in  these  schools  come  and  go  like  the 
ravings  of  a  disordered  mind;  "Greek  History"  (in 
an  hour  or  so  a  week  for  a  term)  is  followed  by  "Ital- 
ian Literature,"  and  this  gives  place  to  the  production 
of  a  Shakesperian  play  that  ultimately  overpowers  and 
disorganizes  the  whole  curriculum.  Ethical  lessons 
and  the  school  pulpit  flourish,  of  course.  A  triennial 
walk  to  a  chalk-pit  is  Field  Geology,  and  vague  half- 
holiday  wanderings  are  Botany  Rambles.  "Art"  of 
the  copper  punching  variety  replaces  any  decent 
attempt  to  draw,  and  an  extreme  expressiveness  in 
music  compensates  for  an  almost  deliberate  slovenli- 
ness of  technique.  Even  the  ladies'  seminaries  of  the 
Georgian  days  could  scarcely  have  produced  a  parallel 


Schooling  215 

to  the  miscellaneous  incapacity  of  the  victim  of  these 
"modern"  schools,  and  it  becomes  daily  more  neces- 
sary for  those  who  have  the  interests  of  education  at 
heart  to  disavow  with  the  mose  unmistakable  emphasis 
these  catch-parent  impostures.     .     .     . 

With  the  other  subjects  under  the  headings  of  A 
and  B,  it  is  not  necessary  to  deal  at  any  length  here. 
Drawing  begins  at  home,  and  a  child  should  have 
begun  to  sketch  freely  before  the  formal  schooling 
commences.  It  is  the  business  of  the  school  to  teach 
drawing  and  not  to  teach  "art,"  which,  indeed,  is  al- 
ways an  individual  and  spontaneous  thing,  and  it  need 
only  concern  itself  directly  with  those  aspects  of  draw- 
ing that  require  direction.  Of  course,  an  hour  set 
aside  from  the  school  time  in  which  boys  or  girls  may 
do  whatever  they  please  with  paper,  ink,  pens,  pencils, 
compasses,  and  water-colour  would  be  a  most  excel- 
lent and  profitable  thing,  but  that  scarcely  counts  (ex- 
cept in  the  Quack  Schools)  as  teaching.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  teaching  absolutely  spoils  all  that  sort  of  thing. 
A  course  in  model  drawing  and  in  perspective,  how- 
ever, is  really  a  training  in  seeing  things,  it  demands 
rigorous  instruction  and  it  must  be  the  backbone  of 
school  drawing,  and,  in  addition,  studies  may  be  made 
from  flowers  that  would  not  be  made  without  direc- 
tion:  topography  (and  much  else)  may  be  learnt  by 
copying  good  explicit  maps ;  chronology  (to  supple- 
ment the  child's  private  reading  of  history)  by  the  con- 
struction of  time  charts;  and  much  history  also  by 
drawing  and  colouring  historical  maps.     With  geomet- 


2i6  Mankind  in  the  Making 

rical  drawing  one  passes  insensibly  into  mathematics. 
And  so  much  has  been  done  not  only  to  revolutionize 
the  teaching  of  modern  languages,  but  also  to  popu- 
larize the  results,  that  I  may  content  myself  with  a 
mere  mention  of  the  names  of  Rippmann,  S.  Alge, 
Holzel,  and  Gouin  as  typical  of  the  new  ways. 

There  remains  the  question  of  C,  the  amount  of 
Information  that  is  to  take  a  place  in  schooling.  Now 
there  is  one  "subject"  that  it  would  be  convenient  to 
include,  were  it  only  for  the  sake  of  the  mass  of  exer- 
cise and  illustration  it  supplies  to  the  mathematical 
course,  and  that  is  the  science  of  Physics.  In  addi- 
tion, the  science  of  physics,  since  it  culminates  in  a 
clear  understanding  and  use  of  the  terminology  of  the 
aspects  of  energy  and  a  clear  sense  of  adequate  causa- 
tion, is  fundamentally  necessary  to  modern  thought. 
Practical  work  is,  no  doubt,  required  for  the  proper 
understanding  of  physical  science,  and  so  far  it  must 
enter  into  schooling,  but  it  may  be  pointed  out  here 
that  in  many  cases  the  educational  faddist  is  overdoing 
the  manual  side  of  science  study  to  a  ridiculous  extent. 
Things  have  altered  very  much  at  the  Royal  College 
of  Science,  no  doubt,  since  my  student  days,  but  fifteen 
years  ago  the  courses  in  elementary  physics  and  in  ele- 
mentary geology  were  quite  childishly  silly  in  this  re- 
spect. Both  these  courses  seemed  to  have  been  in- 
spired by  that  eminent  educationist,  Mr.  Squeers,  and 
the  sequel  to  spelling  "window"  was  always  to  "go 
and  clean  one."  The  science  in  each  course  in  those 
days  could  have  been  acquired  just  as  well  in  a  fort- 


Schooling  217 

night  as  in  half  a  year.  One  muddled  away  three  or 
four  days  etching  a  millimetre  scale  with  hydrofluoric 
acid  on  glass — to  no  earthly  end  that  I  could  discover 
— and  a  week  or  so  in  making  a  needless  barometer. 
In  the  course  in  geology,  days  and  days  were  spent  in 
drawing  ideal  crystalline  forms  and  colouring  them  in 
water-colours,  apparently  in  order  to  get  a  totally 
false  idea  of  a  crystal,  and  weeks  in  the  patient  copy- 
ing of  microscopic  rock  sections  in  water-colours. 
Effectual  measures  of  police  were  taken  to  prevent  the 
flight  of  the  intelligent  student  from  these  tiresome 
duties.  .  .  .  The  mischief  done  in  this  way  is  very 
great.  It  deadens  the  average  students  and  exasper- 
ates and  maddens  the  eager  ones.  I  am  inclined  to 
think  that  a  very  considerable  proportion  of  what 
passes  as  "practical"  science  work,  for  which  costly 
laboratories  are  built  and  expensive  benches  fitted, 
consists  of  very  similar  solemnities,  and  it  cannot  be 
too  strongly  urged  that  "practical"  work  that  does  not 
illuminate  is  mere  waste  of  the  student's  time. 

This  physics  course  would  cover  an  experimental 
quantitative  treatment  of  the  electric  current,  it  would 
glance  in  an  explanatory  way  at  many  of  the  phe- 
nomena of  physical  geography,  and  it  would  be  corre- 
lated with  a  study  of  the  general  principles  of  chem- 
istry. A  detailed  knowledge  of  chemical  compounds 
is  not  a  part  of  general  education,  it  keeps  better  in 
reference  books  than  in  the  non-specialized  head,  and 
it  is  only  the  broad  conceptions  of  analysis  and  com- 
bination, and  of  the  relation  of  energy  to  chemical 
changes,  that  have  to  be  attained. 


2i8  Mankind  in  the  Making 

Beyond  this,  and  the  application  of  map  drawing  to 
g-ive  accurate  ideas  and  to  awaken  interest  in  geogra- 
phy and  history,  it  is  open  to  discussion  whether  any 
Fact  subject  need  be  taught  as  schooling  at  all.  En- 
sure the  full  development  of  a  man's  mental  capacity, 
and  he  will  get  his  Fact  as  he  needs  it.  And  if  his 
mind  is  undeveloped  he  can  make  no  use  of  any  fact 
he  has.  .  .  .  The  subject  called  "Human  Physiol- 
ogy" may  be  at  once  dismissed  as  absurdly  unsuitable 
for  school  use.  One  is  always  meeting  worthy  people 
who  "  don't  see  why  children  should  not  know  some- 
thing about  their  own  bodies,"  and  who  are  not  appar- 
ently aware  that  the  medical  profession  after  some 
generations  of  fairly  systematic  inquiry  knows  remark- 
ably little.  Save  for  some  general  anatomy,  it  is  im- 
possible to  teach  school-children  anything  true  about 
the  human  body,  because  the  explanation  of  almost 
any  physiological  process  demands  a  knowledge  of 
physical  and  chemical  laws  much  sounder  and  subtler 
than  the  average  child  can  possibly  attain.  And  as 
for  botany,  geology,  history,  and  geography  (beyond 
the  range  already  specified),  these  are  far  better  rele- 
gated to  the  school  library  and  the  initiative  of  each 
child.  Every  child  has  its  specific  range  of  interest, 
and  its  specific  way  of  regarding  things.  In  geology, 
for  example,  one  boy  may  be  fascinated  by  the  fossil 
hunting,  another  will  find  his  interest  in  the  effects  of 
structure  in  scenery,  and  a  third,  with  more  imagina- 
tion, will  give- his  whole  mind  to  the  reconstruction  of 
the   past,   and   will   pore   over   maps   of   Pleistocene 


Schooling  219 

Europe  and  pictures  of  Silurian  landscape  with  the 
keenest  appreciation.  Each  will  be  bored,  or  at  least 
not  greatly  interested,  by  what  attracts  the  others. 
Let  the  children  have  an  easily  accessible  library — 
that  is  the  crying  need  of  nine  hundred  and  ninety- 
nine  out  of  a  thousand  schools  to-day,  a  need 
every  school-seeking  parent  may  do  something  to 
remedy — and  in  that  library  let  there  be  one  or 
two  good  densely  illustrated  histories,  illustrated 
travels,  bound  volumes  of  such  a  publication  as 
Newnes'  Wide  World  Magazine  (I  name  these  publi- 
cations haphazard — there  are  probably  others  as  good 
or  better),  Hutchinson  and  Co.'s  Living  Animals  of 
the  World,  the  Rev.  H.  N.  Hutchinson's  Extinct  Mon- 
sters, the  Badminton  volumes  on  big  game  shooting, 
mountaineering,  and  yachting,  Kerner's  "Botany," 
collections  of  'The  Hundred  Best  Pictures"  sort,  col- 
lections of  views  of  towns  and  of  scenery  in  different 
parts  of  the  world,  and  the  like.  Then  let  the  school- 
master set  aside  five  hours  a  week  as  the  minimum  for 
reading,  and  let  the  pupils  read  during  that  time  just 
whatever  they  like,  provided  only  that  they  keep 
silence  and  read.  If  the  schoolmaster  or  schoolmis- 
tress comes  in  at  all  here,  it  should  be  to  stimulate 
systematic  reading  occasionally  by  setting  a  group  of 
five  or  six  pupils  to  "get  up"  some  particular  subject 
— a  report  on  "animals  that  might  still  be  domesti- 
cated," for  example — and  by  showing  them  conversa- 
tionally how  to  read  with  a  slip  of  paper  at  hand,  gath- 
ering facts.     This  sort  of  thing  it  is  impossible  to  re- 


220  Mankind  in  the  Making 

dtice  to  method  and  system,  and,  consequently,  it  is  the 
proper  field  for  the  teacher's  initiative.  It  is  largely 
in  order  to  leave  time  and  energy  for  this  that  I  am 
anxious  to  reduce  the  more  rigorous  elements  in 
schooling  to  standard  and  text-book. 

Now  all  this  schooling  need  not  take  more  than 
twenty  hours  a  week  for  its  backbone  or  hard-work 
portion,  its  English,  mathematics,  science,  and  exact 
drawing,  and  twelve  hours  a  week  for  its  easier,  more 
individual  employments  of  sketching,  painting,  and 
reading,  and  this  leaves  a  large  margin  of  time  for 
military  drill  and  for  physical  exercises.  If  we  are 
to  get  the  best  result  from  the  child's  individuality, 
we  must  leave  a  large  portion  of  that  margin  at  the 
child's  own  disposal,  it  must  be  free  to  go  for  walks, 
to  "muck  about,"  as  schoolboys  say,  to  play  games, 
and  (within  limits)  to  consort  with  companions  of  its 
own  choosing — to  follow  its  interests  in  short.  It  is  in 
this  direction  that  British  middle-class  education  fails 
most  signally  at  the  present  time.  The  English  school- 
boy and  schoolgirl  are  positively  hunted  through 
their  days.  They  do  not  play — using  the  word  to  in- 
dicate a  spontaneous  employment  into  which  imagina- 
tion enters — at  all.  They  have  games,  but  they  are 
so  regulated  that  the  imagination  is  eliminated;  they 
have  exercises  of  various  stereotyped  sorts.  They  are 
taken  to  and  fro  to  these  things  in  the  care  of  persons 
one  would  call  ushers  unhesitatingly  were  it  not  that 
they  also  pretended  to  teach.  The  rest  of  their  wak- 
ing  time    is   preparation    or    supervised    reading   or 


Schooling  22 1 

walking  under  supervision.  Their  friendships  are 
watched.  They  are  never,  never  left  alone.  The 
avowed  ideal  of  many  boarding  schoolmasters  is  to 
"send  them  to  bed  tired  out."  Largely  this  is  due  to 
a  natural  dread  of  accidents  and  scrapes,  that  will 
make  trouble  for  the  school,  but  there  is  also  another 
cause.  If  I  may  speak  frankly  and  entirely  as  an  un- 
authoritative observer,  I  would  say  it  is  a  regrettable 
thing  that  so  large  a  proportion  of  British  secondary 
schoolmasters  and  mistresses  are  unmarried.  The 
normal  condition  of  a  healthy  adult  is  marriage,  and 
for  all  those  who  are  not  defective  upon  this  side  (and 
that  means  an  incapacity  to  understand  many  things) 
celibacy  is  a  state  of  unstable  equilibrium  and  too 
often  a  quite  unwholesome  condition.  Wherever 
there  are  celibate  teachers  I  am  inclined  to  suspect  a 
fussiness,  an  unreasonable  watchfulness,  a  disposition 
to  pry,  an  exaggeration  of  what  are  called  "Dangers," 
a  painful  idealization  of  "Purity."  It  is  a  part  of  the 
normal  development  of  the  human  being  to  observe 
with  some  particularity  certain  phenomena,  to  enter- 
tain certain  curiosities,  to  talk  of  them  to  trusted  equals 
— never,  be  it  noted,  except  by  perversion  to  parents 
or  teachers — and  there  is  not  the  slightest  harm  in 
these  quite  natural  things,  unless  they  are  forced  back 
into  an  abashed  solitude  or  associated  by  suggestion 
with  conceptions  of  shame  and  disgust.  That  is  what 
happens  in  too  many  of  our  girls'  schools  and  prepara- 
tory schools  to-day,  and  it  is  to  that  end  mainly  that 
youthful  intimacies  are  discouraged,  youthful  freedom 


222  Mankind  in  the  Making 

is  restricted,  and  imagination  and  individuality  warped 
and  crippled.  It  is  astonishing  how  much  of  their 
adolescence  grown-up  people  will  contrive  to  for- 
get.    .     .     . 

So  much  fur  schooling  and  what  may  be  done  to 
better  it  in  this  New  Republican  scheme  of  things. 
The  upward  continuation  of  it  into  a  general  College 
course  is  an  integral  part  of  a  larger  question  that  we 
shall  discuss  at  a  later  stage,  the  larger  question  of  the 
general  progressive  thought  of  the  community  as  a 
whole. 


VII 

Political  and  Social  Influences 

There  can  be  few  people  alive  who  have  not  re- 
marked on  occasion  that  men  are  the  creatures  of  cir- 
cumstances. But  it  is  one  thing  to  state  a  belief  of 
this  sort  in  some  incidental  application,  and  quite  an- 
other to  realize  it  completely.  Towards  such  a  com- 
pleter realization  we  have  been  working  in  these 
papers,  in  disentangling  the  share  of  inheritance  and 
of  deliberate  schooling  and  training,  in  the  production 
of  the  civilized  man.  The  rest  we  have  to  ascribe  to 
his  world  in  general,  of  which  his  home  is  simply  the 
first  and  most  intimate  aspect.  In  every  developing 
citizen  we  have  asserted  there  is  a  great  mass  of  fluid 
and  indeterminate  possibility,  and  this  sets  and  is 
shaped  by  the  world  about  him  as  wax  is  shaped  by 
a  mould.  It  is  rarely,  of  course,  an  absolutely  exact 
and  submissive  cast  that  ensues ;  few  men  and  women 
are  without  some  capacity  for  question  and  criticism, 
but  it  is  only  very  rare  and  obdurate  material — only, 
as  one  says,  a  very  original  personality — that  does  not 
finally  take  its  general  form  and  direction  in  this  way. 
And  it  is  proposed  in  this  paper  to  keep  this  statement 
persistently  in  focus,  instead  of  dismissing  it  as  a 
platitude  and  thinking  no  more  about  it  at  all  after  the 

233 


224  Mankind  in  the  Making 

usual  fashion,  while  we  examine  certain  broad  social 
and  political  facts  and  conventions  which  constitute 
the  general  framework  of  the  world  in  which  the 
developing  citizen  is  placed.  I  would  submit  that  at 
the  present  time  with  regard  to  such  things  as  church 
and  kingdom,  constitution  and  nationality,  we  are  alto- 
gether too  much  enslaved  by  the  idea  of  "policy,"  and 
altogether  too  blind  to  the  remoter,  deeper,  and  more 
lasting  consequences  of  our  public  acts  and  institutions 
in  moulding  the  next  generation.  It  will  not,  I  think, 
be  amiss  to  pass  beyond  policy  for  a  space,  and  to  insist 
— even  with  heaviness — that  however  convenient  an 
institution  may  be,  however  much  it  may,  in  the  twad- 
dle of  the  time,  be  a  "natural  growth,"  and  however 
much  the  "product  of  a  long  evolution,"  yet,  if  it  does 
not  mould  men  into  fine  and  vigorous  forms,  it  has 
to  be  destroyed.  We  "save  the  state"  for  the  sake  of 
our  children,  that,  at  least,  is  the  New  Republican 
view  of  the  matter,  and  if  in  our  intentness  to  save 
the  state  we  injure  or  sacrifice  our  children,  we  destroy 
our  ultimate  for  our  proximate  aim. 

Already  it  has  been  pointed  out,  with  certain  con- 
crete instances,  how  the  thing  that  is,  asserts  itself  over 
the  thing  that  is  to  be;  already  a  general  indication 
has  been  made  of  the  trend  of  the  argument  we  are 
now  about  to  develop  and  define.  That  argument, 
briefly,  is  this,  that  to  attain  the  ends  of  the  New 
Republic,  that  is  to  say  the  best  results  from  our  birth 
possibilities,  we  must  continually  make  political  forms, 
social,  political  and  religious  formulae,  and  all  the  rules 


Political  and  Social  Influences     225 

and  regulations  of  life  the  clearest,  simplest,  and  sin- 
cerest  expression  possible  of  what  we  believe  about  life 
and  hope  about  life;  that  whatever  momentary  advan- 
tage a  generation  may  gain  by  accepting  what  is 
known  to  be  a  sham  and  a  convention,  by  keeping  in 
use  the  detected  imposture  and  the  flawed  apparatus, 
is  probably  much  more  than  made  up  for  by  the  reac- 
tion of  this  acquiescence  upon  the  future.  As  the 
typical  instance  of  a  convenient  convention  that  I  am 
inclined  to  think  is  now  reacting  very  badly  upon  our 
future,  the  Crown  of  the  British  Empire,  considered  as 
the  symbolical  figurehead  of  a  system  of  hereditary 
privilege  and  rule,  serves  extremely  well.  One  may 
deal  with  this  typical  instance  with  no  special  applica- 
tion to  the  easy,  kindly,  amiable  personality  this  crown 
adorns  at  the  present  time.  It  is  a  question  that  may 
be  dealt  with  in  general  terms.  What,  we  would  ask, 
are  the  natural,  inseparable  concomitants  of  a  system 
of  hereditary  rulers  in  a  state,  looking  at  the  thing 
entirely  with  an  eye  to  the  making  of  a  greater  man- 
kind in  the  world?  How  does  it  compare  with  the 
American  conception  of  democratic  equality,  and  how 
do  both  stand  with  regard  to  the  essential  truth  and 
purpose  in  things?    .     .    . 

To  state  these  questions  is  like  opening  the  door  of 
a  room  that  has  long  been  locked  and  deserted.  One 
has  a  lonely  feeling.  There  are  quite  remarkably  no 
other  voices  here,  and  the  rusty  hinges  echo  down 
empty  passages  that  were  quite  threateningly  full  of 
men  seventy  or  eighty  years  ago.     But  I  am  only  one 


226  Mankind  in  the  Making 

very  insignificant  member  of  a  class  of  inquirers  in 
England  who  started  upon  the  question  "why  are  we 
becoming  inefficient?"  a  year  or  two  ago,  and  from 
that  starting  point  it  is  I  came  to  this.  ...  I  do 
not  believe  therefore  that  upon  this  dusty  threshold  I 
shall  stand  long  alone.  We  take  most  calmly  the  most 
miraculous  of  things,  and  it  is  only  quite  recently  that 
I  have  come  to  see  as  amazing  this  fact,  that  while  the 
greater  mass  of  our  English-speaking  people  is  living 
under  the  profession  of  democratic  Republicanism, 
there  is  no  party,  no  sect,  no  periodical,  no  teacher 
either  in  Great  Britain  or  America  or  the  Colonies,  to 
hint  at  a  proposal  to  abolish  the  aristocratic  and 
monarchical  elements  in  the  liritish  system.  There  is 
no  revolutionary  spirit  over  here,  and  very  little  mis- 
sionary spirit  over  there.  The  great  mass  of  the  pres- 
ent generation  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  takes 
hardly  any  interest  in  this  issue  at  all.  It  is  as  if  the 
question  was  an  impossible  one,  outside  the  range  of 
thinkable  things.  Or,  as  if  the  last  word  in  this  con- 
troversy was  said  before  our  grandfathers  died. 

But  is  that  really  so?  It  is  permissible  to  suggest 
that  for  a  time  the  last  word  had  been  said,  and  still 
to  reopen  the  discussion  now.  All  these  papers,  the 
very  conception  of  New  Republicanism,  rests  on  the 
assumption — presumptuous  and  offensive  though  it 
must  needs  seem  to  many — that  new  matter  for 
thought  altogether,  new  apparatus  and  methods  of  in- 
quiry, and  new  ends,  have  come  into  view  since  the 
early  seventies,  when  the  last  Republican  voices  in 


Political  and  Social  Influences     227 

England  died  away.  We  are  enormously  more  aware 
of  the  Future.  That,  we  have  already  defined  as  the 
essential  difference  of  our  new^  outlook.  Our  fathers 
thought  of  the  Kingdom  as  it  was  to  them,  they  con- 
trasted with  that  the  immediate  alternative,  and  within 
these  limits  they  were,  no  doubt,  right  in  rejecting  the 
latter.  So,  to  them  at  any  rate,  the  thing  seemed 
judged.  But  nowadays  when  we  have  said  the  King- 
dom is  so  and  so,  and  when  we  have  decided  that  we 
do  not  wish  to  convert  it  into  a  Republic  upon  the 
American  or  any  other  existing  pattern  before  Christ- 
mas, 1904,  we  consider  we  have  only  begun  to  look 
at  the  thing.  We  have  then  to  ask  what  is  the  future 
of  the  Kingdom ;  is  it  to  be  a  permanent  thing,  or  is  it 
to  develop  into  and  give  place  to  some  other  condi- 
tion? We  have  to  ask  precisely  the  same  question 
about  the  American  democracy  and  the  American  con- 
stitution. Is  that  latter  arrangement  going  to  last  for 
ever?  We  cannot  help  being  contributory  to  these 
developments,  and  if  we  have  any  pretensions  to  wis- 
dom at  all,  we  must  have  some  theory  of  what  we 
intend  with  regard  to  these  things ;  political  action  can 
surely  be  nothing  but  folly,  unless  it  has  a  clear  pur- 
pose in  the  future.  If  these  things  are  not  sempiter- 
nal, then  are  we  merely  to  patch  the  fabric  as  it  gives 
way,  or  are  we  going  to  set  about  rebuilding — piece- 
meal, of  course,  and  without  closing  the  premises  or 
stopping  the  business,  but,  nevertheless,  on  some  clear 
and  comprehensive  plan?  If  so,  what  is  the  plan  to 
be?     Does  it  permit  us  to  retain  in  a  more  or  less 


228  Mankind  in  the  Making 

modified  form,  or  does  it  urge  us  to  get  rid  of,  the 
British  Crown?  Does  it  permit  us  to  retain  or  does 
it  urge  us  to  modify  the  American  constitution?  That 
is  the  form,  it  seems  to  me,  in  which  the  question  of 
Repubhcanism  as  an  alternative  to  existing  institu- 
tions, must  presently  return  into  the  field  of  public  dis- 
cussion in  Great  Britain ;  not  as  a  question  of  political 
stability  nor  of  individual  rights  this  time,  but  as  an 
aspect  of  our  general  scheme,  our  scheme  to  make  the 
world  more  free  and  more  stimulating  and  strengthen- 
ing for  our  children  and  our  children's  children;  for 
the  children  both  of  our  bodies  and  of  our  thoughts. 

It  is  interesting  to  recall  the  assumptions  under 
which  the  last  vestiges  of  militant  Republicanism  died 
out  in  Great  Britain.  As  late  as  the  middle  years  of 
the  reign  of  Queen  Victoria,  there  were  many  in  Eng- 
land who  were,  and  who  openly  professed  themselves 
to  be.  Republicans,  and  there  was  a  widely  felt  per- 
suasion that  the  country  was  drifting  slowly  towards 
the  constitution  of  a  democratic  republic.  In  those 
days  it  was  that  there  came  into  being  a  theory, 
strengthened  by  the  withdrawal  of  the  Monarch  from 
affairs,  which  one  still  hears  repeated,  that  Great  Brit- 
ain was  a  "crowned  republic,"  that  the  crown  was  no 
more  than  a  symbol  retained  by  the  "innate  good 
sense"  of  the  British  people,  and  that  in  some  auto- 
matic way  not  clearly  explained,  such  old-time  vestiges 
of  privilege  as  the  House  of  Lords  would  presently 
disappear.  One  finds  this  confident  belief  in  Progress 
towards  political  equality — Progress  that  required  no 


Political  and  Social  Influences     229 

human  effort,  but  was  inherent  in  the  schen.e  of  things 
— very  strong  in  Dickens,  for  example,  who  spoke  for 
the  average  Enghshman  as  no  later  writer  can  be  said 
to  have  done.  This  belief  fell  in  very  happily  with 
that  disposition  to  funk  a  crisis,  that  vulgar  dread  of 
vulgar  action  which  one  must  regretfully  admit  was 
all  too  often  a  characteristic  of  the  nineteenth  century 
English.  There  was  an  idea  among  Englishmen  that 
to  do  anything  whatever  of  a  positive  sort  to  bring 
about  a  Republic  was  not  only  totally  unnecessary  but 
inevitably  mischievous,  since  it  evidently  meant  street 
fighting  and  provisional  government  by  bold,  bad, 
blood-stained,  vulgar  men,  in  shirt  sleeves  as  the  essen- 
tial features  of  the  process.  And  under  the  enervat- 
ing influence  of  this  great  automatic  theory — this 
theory  that  no  one  need  bother  because  the  thing  was 
bound  to  come,  was  indeed  already  arriving  for  all 
who  had  eyes  to  see — Republicanism  did  not  so  much 
die  as  fall  asleep.  It  was  all  right.  Liberalism  told  us 
— the  Crown  was  a  legal  fiction,  the  House  of  Lords 
was  an  interesting  anachronism,  and  in  that  faith  it 
was,  no  doubt,  that  the  last  of  the  Republicans,  Mr. 
Bright  and  Mr.  Joseph  Chamberlain,  "kissed  hands." 
Then,  presently,  the  frantic  politics  of  Mr.  Gladstone 
effected  what  probably  no  other  human  agency  could 
have  contrived,  and  restored  the  prestige  of  the  House 
of  Lords. 

Practically  the  Crown  has  now  gone  unchallenged 
by  press,  pulpit,  or  platform  speaker  for  thirty  years, 
and  as  a  natural  consequence   there  is   just   now   a 


230  Mankind  in  the  Making 

smaller  proportion  of  men  under  forty  who  call  them- 
selves Republicans  even  in  private  than  there  ever  was 
since  Plutarch  entered  the  circle  of  English  reading. 
To-day  the  Aristocratic  Monarchy  is  an  almost  univer- 
sally accepted  fact  in  the  British  Empire,  and  it  has  so 
complete  an  air  of  unshakable  permanence  to  contrast 
with  its  condition  in  the  early  nineteenth  century  that 
even  the  fact  that  it  is  the  only  really  concrete  obstacle 
to  a  political  reunion  of  the  English-speaking  peoples 
at  the  present  time,  seems  merely  a  fact  to  avoid. 

There  are  certain  consequences  that  must  follow 
from  the  unchallenged  acceptation  of  an  aristocratic 
monarchy,  consequences  that  do  not  seem  to  be  suffi- 
ciently recognized  in  this  connection,  and  it  is  to  these 
that  the  reader's  attention  is  now  particularly  drawn. 
There  are  a  great  number  of  British  people  who  are 
more  or  less  sincerely  seeking  the  secret  of  national 
efficiency  at  present,  and  I  cannot  help  thinking  that 
sooner  or  later,  in  spite  of  their  evident  aversion,  they 
will  be  forced  to  look  into  this  dusty  chamber  of 
thought  for  the  clue  to  the  thing  they  need.  The  cor- 
ner they  will  have  to  turn  is  the  admission  that  no  state 
and  no  people  can  be  at  its  maximum  efficiency  until 
every  public  function  is  discharged  by  the  man  best 
able  to  perform  it,  and  that  no  Commonweal  can  be 
near  efficiency  until  it  is  endeavouring  very  earnestly 
to  bring  that  ideal  condition  of  affairs  about.  And 
when  they  have  got  round  that  corner  they  will  have 
to  face  the  fact  that  an  Hereditary  Monarchy  is  a  state 
in  which  this  principle  is  repudiated  at  a  cardinal  point, 


Political  and  Social  Influences     231 

a  state  in  which  one  position,  which  no  amount  of 
sophistication  will  prevent  common  men  and  women 
regarding  as  the  most  honourable,  powerful,  and  re- 
sponsible one  of  all,  which  is  indeed  by  that  very  fact 
alone  a  great  and  responsible  one,  is  filled  on  purely 
genealogical  grounds.  In  a  state  that  has  also  an 
aristocratic  constitution  this  repudiation  of  special  per- 
sonal qualities  is  carried  very  much  further.  Reluct- 
antly but  certainly  the  seeker  after  national  efficiency 
will  come  to  the  point  that  the  aristocracy  and  their 
friends  and  connections  must  necessarily  form  a  caste 
about  the  King,  that  their  gradations  must  set  the  tone 
of  the  whole  social  body,  and  that  their  political  posi- 
tion must  enable  them  to  demand  and  obtain  a  pre- 
dominating share  in  any  administration  that  may  be 
formed.  So  long,  therefore,  as  your  constitution  re- 
mains aristocratic  you  must  expect  to  see  men  of  quite 
ordinary  ability,  quite  ordinary  energ}%  and  no  excep- 
tional force  of  character,  men  frequently  less  clever 
and  influential  than  their  wives  and  lady  friends,  con- 
trolling the  public  services,  a  Duke  of  Norfolk  man- 
aging so  vital  a  business  as  the  Post  Office  and  suc- 
ceeded by  a  Marquis  of  Londonderry,  and  a  Marquis 
of  Lansdowne  organizing  military  affairs,  and 
nothing  short  of  a  change  in  your  political  constitu- 
tion can  prevent  this  sort  of  thing.  No  one  believes 
these  excellent  gentlemen  hold  these  positions  by 
merit  or  capacity,  and  no  one  believes  that  from  them 
we  are  getting  anything  like  the  best  imaginable  ser- 
vices in  these  positions.     These  positions  are  held  by 


232  Mankind  in  the  Making 

the  mere  accident  of  birth,  and  it  is  by  the  mere 
accident  of  birth  the  great  mass  of  EngHshmen  are 
shut  out  from  the  remotest  hope  of  serving  their 
country  in  such  positions. 

And  this  evil  of  reserved  places  is  not  restricted  by 
any  means  to  public  control.  You  cannot  both  have 
a  system  and  not  have  a  system,  and  the  British  have 
a  system  of  hereditary  aristocracy  that  infects  the 
whole  atmosphere  of  English  thought  with  the  per- 
suasion that  what  a  man  may  attempt  is  determined 
by  his  caste.  It  is  here,  and  nowhere  else,  that  the 
clue  to  so  much  inefficiency  as  one  finds  it  in  contem- 
porary British  activity  lies.  The  officers  of  the  British 
Army  instead  of  being  sedulously  picked  from  the 
whole  population  are  drawn  from  a  really  quite  small 
group  of  families,  and,  except  for  those  who  are  called 
"gentleman  rankers,"  to  enlist  is  the  very  last  way  in 
the  world  to  become  a  British  officer.  As  a  very  nat- 
ural corollary  only  broken  men  and  unambitious  men 
of  the  lowest  class  will  consent  to  become  ordinary 
private  soldiers,  except  during  periods  of  extreme 
patriotic  excitement.  The  men  who  enter  the  Civil 
Service  also,  know  perfectly  well  that  though  they 
may  possess  the  most  brilliant  administrative  powers 
and  develop  and  use  themselves  with  relentless  en- 
ergy, they  will  never  win  for  themselves  or  their  wives 
one  tithe  of  the  public  honour  that  comes  by  right  to 
the  heir  to  a  dukedom.  A  dockyard  hand  who  uses 
his  brains  and  makes  a  suggestion  that  may  save  the 
country  thousands   of  pounds  will   get — a   gratuity. 


Political  and  Social  Influences     233 

Throughout  all  English  affairs  the  suggestion  of  this 
political  system  has  spread.  The  employer  is  of  a  dif- 
ferent caste  from  his  workmen,  the  captain  is  of  a  dif- 
ferent caste  from  his  crew,  even  the  Teachers'  Regis- 
ter is  specially  classified  to  prevent  ''young  gentlemen" 
being  taught  by  the  only  men  who,  as  a  class,  know 
how  to  teach  in  England,  namely,  the  elementary 
teachers;  everywhere  the  same  thing  is  to  be  found. 
And  while  it  is,  it  is  absurd  to  expect  a  few  platitudes 
about  Freedom,  and  snobbishness,  and  a  few  pious 
hopes  about  efficiency,  to  counteract  the  system's  uni- 
versal, incessant  teaching,  its  lesson  of  limited  effort 
within  defined  possibilities.  Only  under  one  condition 
may  such  a  system  rise  towards  anything  that  may  be 
called  national  vigour,  and  that  is  when  there  exists  a 
vigorous  Court  which  sets  the  fashion  of  hard  work. 
A  keen  King,  indifferent  to  feminine  influence,  may, 
for  a  time,  make  a  keen  nation,  but  that  is  an  excep- 
tional state  of  affairs,  and  the  whole  shape  of  the 
fabric  gravitates  towards  relapse.  Even  under  such 
an  influence  the  social  stratification  will  still,  in  the 
majority  of  cases,  prevent  powers  and  posts  falling  to 
the  best  possible  man.  In  the  majority  of  cases  the 
best  that  can  be  hoped  for,  even  then,  will  be  to  see 
the  best  man  in  the  class  privileged  in  relation  to  any 
particular  service,  discharging  that  service.  The  most 
efficient  nation  in  the  world  to-day  is  believed  to  be 
Germany,  which  is — roughly  speaking — an  aristocratic 
monarchy,  it  is  dominated  by  a  man  of  most  unkingly 
force  of  character,  and  by  a  noble  tradition  of  educa- 


234  Mmikind  in  the  Making 

tional  thoroughness  that  arose  out  of  the  shames  of 
utter  defeat,  and,  as  a  consequence,  a  great  number  of 
people  contrive  to  forget  that  the  most  dazzling  display 
of  national  efficiency  the  world  has  ever  seen  followed 
the  sloughing  of  hereditary  institutions  by  France. 
One  credits  Napoleon  too  often  with  the  vigour  of  his 
opportunity,  with  the  force  and  strength  it  was  his 
privilege  to  misdirect  and  destroy.  And  one  forgets 
that  this  present  German  efficiency  was  paralleled  in 
the  eighteenth  century  by  Prussia,  whose  aristocratic 
system  first  winded  Republicans  at  Valmy,  and  showed 
at  Jena  fourteen  years  after  how  much  it  had  learnt 
from  that  encounter. 

Now  our  main  argument  lies  in  this :  that  the  great 
mass  of  a  generation  of  children  born  into  a  country, 
all  those  children  who  have  no  more  than  average  in- 
telligence and  average  moral  qualities,  will  accept  the 
ostensible  institutions  of  that  country  at  their  face 
value,  and  will  be  almost  entirely  shaped  and  deter- 
mined by  that  acceptance.  Only  a  sustained  under- 
tone of  revolutionary  protest  can  prevent  that  happen- 
ing. They  will  believe  that  precedences  represent  real 
superiority,  and  they  will  honour  what  they  see  hon- 
oured, and  ignore  what  they  see  treated  as  of  no  ac- 
count. Pious  sentiment  about  Equality  and  Freedom 
will  enter  into  the  reality  of  their  minds  as  little  as  a 
drop  of  water  into  a  greasy  plate.  They  will  act  as 
little  in  general  intercourse  upon  the  proposition  that 
*'the  man's  the  gowd  for  a'  that,"  as  they  will  upon  the 
proposition  that  "man  is  a  spirit"  when  it  comes  to  the 


Political  and  Social  Influences     235 

alternative  of  jumping  over  a  cliff  or  going  down  by 
a  ladder. 

If,  however,  your  children  are  not  average  children, 
if  you  are  so  happy  as  to  have  begotten  children  of  ex- 
ceptional intelligence,  it  does  not  follow  that  this  fact 
will  save  them  from  conclusions  quite  parallel  to  those 
of  the  common  child.  Suppose  they  do  penetrate  the 
pretence  that  there  is  no  intrinsic  difference  between 
the  Royal  Family  and  the  members  of  the  peerage  on 
the  one  hand,  and  the  average  person  in  any  other 
class  on  the  other;  suppose  they  discover  that  the 
whole  scale  of  precedence  and  honour  in  their  land  is 
a  stupendous  sham; — what  then?  Suppose  they  see 
quite  clearly  that  all  these  pretensions  of  an  inviolate 
superiority  of  birth  and  breeding  vanish  at  the  touch 
of  a  Whitaker  Wright,  soften  to  a  glowing  cordiality 
before  the  sunny  promises  of  a  Hooley.  Suppose 
they  perceive  that  neither  King  nor  lords  really  believe 
in  their  own  lordliness,  and  that  at  any  point  in  the 
system  one  may  find  men  with  hands  for  any  man's 
tip,  provided  it  is  only  sufficiently  large!  Even 
then! —  How  is  that  going  to  react  upon  our  chil- 
dren's social  conduct? 

In  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a  hundred  they  will  ac- 
cept the  system  still,  they  will  accept  it  with  mental 
reservations.  They  will  see  that  to  repudiate  the  sys- 
tem by  more  than  a  chance  word  or  deed  is  to  become 
isolated,  to  become  a  discontented  alien,  to  lose  even 
the  qualified  permission  to  do  something  in  the  world. 
In  most  cases  they  will  take  the  oaths  that  come  in  their 


236  Mankind  in  the  Making 

way  and  kiss  the  hands — just  as  the  British  elemen- 
tary teachers  bow  unbelieving  heads  to  receive  the  epis- 
copal pat,  and  just  as  the  British  sceptic  in  orders  will 
achieve  triumphs  of  ambiguity  to  secure  the  episcopal 
see.  And  their  reason  for  submission  will  not  be  ab- 
solutely despicable ;  they  will  know  there  is  no  employ- 
ment worth  speaking  of  without  it.  After  all,  one  has 
only  one  life,  and  it  is  not  pleasant  to  pass  through 
it  in  a  state  of  futile  abstinence  from  the  general 
scheme.  Life,  unfortunately,  does  not  end  with 
heroic  moments  of  repudiation ;  there  comes  a  morrow 
to  the  Everlasting  Nay.  One  may  begin  with  heroic 
renunciations  and  end  in  undignified  envy  and  dyspep- 
tic comments  outside  the  door  one  has  slammed  on 
one's  self.  In  such  reflections  your  children  of  the 
exceptional  sort,  it  may  be  after  a  youthful  fling  or 
two,  a  "ransom"  speech  or  so,  will  find  excellent 
reasons  for  making  their  peace  with  things  as  they 
are,  just  as  if  they  were  utterly  commonplace.  They 
know  that  if  they  can  boast  a  knighthood  or  a  baron- 
etcy or  a  Privy  Councillorship,  they  will  taste  day  by 
day  and  every  day  that  respect,  that  confidence  from 
all  about  them  that  no  one  but  a  trained  recluse  de- 
spises. And  life  will  abound  in  opportunities.  "Oh, 
well!"  they  will  say.  Such  things  give  them  influ- 
ence, consideration,  power  to  do  things.     .     .     . 

The  beginning  of  concessions  is  so  entirely  reason- 
able and  easy!  But  the  concessions  go  on.  Each 
step  upward  in  the  British  system  finds  that  system 
more  persistently  about  them.     When  one  has  started 


Political  and  Social  Influences     22,"] 

out  under  a  King  one  may  find  amiable  but  whom  one 
may  not  respect,  admitted  a  system  one  does  not  be- 
lieve in,  when  one  has  rubbed  the  first  bloom  off  one's 
honour,  it  is  infinitely  easier  to  begin  peeling  the  skin. 
Many  a  man  whose  youth  was  a  dream  of  noble 
things,  who  was  all  for  splendid  achievements  and  the 
service  of  mankind,  peers  to-day,  by  virtue  of  such 
acquiescences,  from  between  preposterous  lawn  sleeves 
or  under  a  tilted  coronet,  sucked  as  dry  of  his  essential 
honour  as  a  spider  sucks  a  fly.     .     .     . 

But  this  is  going  too  far,  the  reader  will  object! 
There  must  be  concessions,  there  must  be  conformities, 
just  as  there  must  be  some  impurity  in  the  water  we 
drink  and  flaws  in  the  beauty  we  give  our  hearts  to, 
and  that,  no  doubt,  is  true.  It  is  no  reason  why  \\t 
should  drink  sewage  and  kneel  to  grossness  and  base 
stupidity.  To  endure  the  worst  because  we  cannot 
have  the  best  is  surely  the  last  word  of  folly.  Our 
business  as  New  Republicans  is  not  to  waste  our  lives 
in  the  pursuit  of  an  unattainable  chemical  purity,  but 
to  clear  the  air  as  much  as  possible.  Practical  ethics 
is,  after  all,  a  quantitative  science.  In  the  reality  of 
life  there  are  few  absolute  cases,  and  it  is  foolish  to 
forego  a  great  end  for  a  small  concession.  But  to  suf- 
fer so  much  Royalty  and  Privilege  as  an  Englishman 
has  to  do  before  he  may  make  any  effectual  figure  in 
public  life  is  not  a  small  concession.  By  the  time  you 
have  purchased  power  you  may  find  you  have  given 
up  everything  that  made  power  worth  having.  It 
would  be  a  small  concession,  I  admit,  a  mere  personal 


238  Mankind  in  the  Making 

self-sacrifice,  to  pretend  loyalty,  kneel  and  kiss  hands, 
assist  at  Coronation  mummeries,  and  all  the  rest  of  it, 
in  order,  let  us  say,  to  accomplish  some  great  improve- 
ment in  the  schools  of  the  country,  were  it  not  for  the 
fact  that  all  these  things  must  be  done  in  the  sight  of 
the  young,  that  you  cannot  kneel  to  the  King  without 
presenting  a  kneeling  example  to  the  people^  without 
becoming  as  good  a  teacher  of  servility  as  though  you 
were  servile  to  the  marrow.  There  lies  the  trouble. 
By  virtue  of  this  reaction  it  is  that  the  shams  and 
ceremonies  we  may  fancy  mere  curious  survivals, 
mere  kinks  and  tortuosities,  cloaks  and  accessories 
to-day,  will,  if  we  are  silent  and  acquiescent,  be  half- 
way to  reality  again  in  the  course  of  a  generation. 
To  our  children  they  are  not  evidently  shams;  they 
are  powerful  working  suggestions.  Human  institu- 
tions are  things  of  life,  and  whatever  weed  of  falsity 
lies  still  rooted  in  the  ground  has  the  promise  and 
potency  of  growth.  It  will  tend  perpetually,  accord- 
ing to  its  nature,  to  recover  its  old  influence  over  the 
imagination,  the  thoughts,  and  acts  of  our  children. 

Even  when  the  whole  trend  of  economic  and  social 
development  sets  against  the  real  survival  of  such  a 
social  and  political  system  as  the  British,  its  preten- 
sions, its  shape  and  implications  may  survive,  survive 
all  the  more  disastrously  because  they  are  increasingly 
insincere.  Indeed,  in  a  sense,  the  British  system,  the 
pyramid  of  King,  land-owning  and  land-ruling  aris- 
tocracy, yeomen  and  trading  middle-class  and  labour- 
ers, is  dead — it  died  in  the  nineteenth  century  under 


Political  and  Social  Influences     239 

the  wheels  of  mechanism  ^ — and  the  crude  beginnings 
of  a  new  system  are  clothed  in  its  raiment,  and  greatly 
encumbered  by  that  clothing.  Our  greatest  peers  are 
shareholders,  are  equipped  by  marriage  with  the 
wealth  of  Jews  and  Americans,  are  exploiters  of  colo- 
nial resources  and  urban  building  enterprises;  their 
territorial  titles  are  a  mask  and  a  lie.  They  hamper 
the  development  of  the  new  order,  but  they  cannot 
altogether  prevent  the  emergence  of  new  men.  The 
new  men  come  up  to  power  one  by  one,  from  different 
enterprises,  with  various  traditions,  and  one  by  one, 
before  they  can  develop  a  sense  of  class  distinction 
and  collective  responsibility,  the  old  system  with  its 
organized  **  Society  "  captures  them.  If  it  finds  the 
man  obdurate,  it  takes  his  wife  and  daughters,  and  it 
waylays  his  sons.^  Because  the  hereditary  kingdom 
and  aristocracy  of  Great  Britain  is  less  and  less 
representative   of  economic   reality,   more   and   more 

1  I  have  discussed  this  fully  in  Anticipations,  Chapter  III.,  Devel- 
oping Social  Elements. 

2  It  is  not  only  British  subjects  that  are  assimilated  in  this  way 
the  infection  of  the  British  system,  the  annexation  of  certain  social 
strata  in  the  Republic  by  the  British  crown,  is  a  question  for  every 
thoughtful  American.  America  is  less  and  less  separate  from  Europe, 
and  the  social  development  of  the  United  States  cannot  be  a  distinct 
process — it  is  ine\itably  bound  up  in  the  general  social  development  of 
the  English-speaking  community.  The  taint  has  touched  the  American 
Navy,  for  example,  and  there  are  those  who  discourage  promotion  from 
the  ranks — the  essential  \'irtue  of  the  democratic  state — because  men 
so  promoted  would  be  at  a  disadvantage  when  they  met  the  officers  of 
foreign  navies,  who  were  by  birth  and  training  "gentlemen."  When 
they  met  them  socially  no  doubt  was  meant;  in  war  *he  disadvantage 
might  prove  the  other  way  about. 


240  Mankind  in  the  Making 

false  to  the  real  needs  of  the  world,  it  does  not 
follow  that  it  will  disappear,  any  more  than  ma- 
larial fever  will  disappear  from  a  man's  blood  because 
it  is  irrelevant  to  the  general  purpose  of  his  being. 
These  things  will  only  go  when  a  sufficient  num- 
ber of  sufficiently  capable  and  powerful  people 
are  determined  they  shall  go.  Until  that  time  they 
will  remain  with  us,  influencing  things  about  them 
for  evil,  as  it  lies  in  their  nature  to  do. 

Before,  however,  any  sufficiently  great  and  capable 
body  of  men  can  be  found  to  abolish  these  shams, 
these  shams  that  must  necessarily  hamper  and  limit 
the  development  of  our  children,  it  is  necessary  that 
they  should  have  some  clear  idea  of  the  thing  that  is 
to  follow,  and  the  real  security  of  these  obsolete  insti- 
tutions lies  very  largely  in  the  fact  that  at  present  the 
thing  that  is  to  follow  does  not  define  itself.  It  is  too 
commonly  assumed  that  the  alternative  to  a  more  or 
less  hereditary  government  is  democratic  republican- 
ism of  the  American  type,  and  the  defence  of  the  for- 
mer consists  usually  in  an  indictment  of  the  latter, 
complicated  in  very  illogical  cases  by  the  assertion 
(drawn  from  the  French  instance)  that  Republics  are 
unstable.  But  it  does  not  follow  that  because  one  con- 
demns the  obvious  shams  of  the  British  system  that 
one  must  accept  the  shams  of  the  United  States. 
While  in  Great  Britain  we  have  a  system  that  masks 
and  hampers  the  best  of  our  race  under  a  series  of 
artificial  inequalities,  the  United  States  theory  of  the 
essential  equality  of  all  men  is  equally  not  in  accord- 


Political  and  Social  Influences     241 

ance  with  the  reality  of  Hfe.  In  America,  just  as  in 
England,  the  intelligent  child  grows  up  to  discover 
that  the  pretensions  of  public  life  are  not  justified,  and 
quite  equally  to  be  flawed  in  thought  and  action  by 
that  discovery. 

The  American  atmosphere  has  one  great  and  in- 
disputable superiority  over  the  British :  it  insists  upon 
the  right  of  every  citizen,  it  almost  presents  it  as  a 
duty,  to  do  all  that  he  possibly  can  do ;  it  holds  out 
to  him  even  the  highest  position  in  the  state  as  a 
possible  reward  for  endeavour.  Up  to  the  point  of 
its  equality  of  opportunity  surely  no  sane  English- 
man can  do  anything  but  envy  the  American  state. 
In  America  "presumption"  is  not  a  sin.  All  the  vig- 
orous enterprise  that  differentiates  the  American 
from  the  Englishman  in  business  flows  quite  naturally 
from  that ;  all  the  patriotic  force  and  loyalty  of  the 
common  American,  which  glows  beside  the  English 
equivalent  as  the  sun  beside  the  moon,  glows  even 
oppressively.  But  apart  from  these  inestimable  ad- 
vantages I  do  not  see  that  the  American  has  much 
that  an  Englishman  need  envy.  There  are  certainly 
points  of  inferiority  in  the  American  atmosphere,  in- 
fluences in  development  that  are  bad,  not  only  in 
comparison  with  what  is  ideally  possible,  but  even  in 
comparison  with  English  parallels. 

For  example,  the  theory  that  every  man  is  as  good 
as  his  neighbour,  and  possibly  a  little  better,  has  no 
check  for  fools,  and  instead  of  the  respectful  silences 
of   England   there   seems — to   the   ordinary    English 


242  Mankind  in  the  Making 

mind — an  extraordinary  quantity  of  crude  and  un- 
sound judgments  in  America,  One  gets  an  impres- 
sion that  the  sort  of  mind  that  is  passively  stupid  in 
England  is  often  actively  silly  in  America,  and,  as  a 
consequence,  American  newspapers,  American  dis- 
cussions, American  social  affairs  are  pervaded  by  a 
din  that  in  England  we  do  not  hear  and  do  not  want 
to  hear.  The  real  and  steady  development  of  Amer- 
ican scientific  men  is  masked  to  the  European  ob- 
server, and  it  must  be  greatly  hampered  by  the  copious 
silliness  of  the  amateur  discoverer,  and  the  American 
crop  of  new  religions  and  new  enthusiasms  is  a  horror 
and  a  warning  to  the  common  British  intelligence. 
Many  people  whose  judgments  are  not  absolutely 
despicable  hold  a  theory  that  unhampered  personal 
freedom  for  a  hundred  years  has  made  out  of  the 
British  type,  a  type  less  deliberate  and  thorough  in 
execution  and  more  noisy  and  pushful  in  conduct, 
restless  rather  than  indefatigable,  and  smart  rather 
than  wise.  If  ninety-nine  people  out  of  the  hundred 
in  our  race  are  vulgar  and  unwise,  it  does  seem  to  be 
a  fact  that  while  the  English  fool  is  generally  a  shy 
and  negative  fool  anxious  to  hide  the  fact,  the 
American  fool  is  a  loud  and  positive  fool,  who 
sw^amps  much  of  the  greatness  of  his  country  to  many 
a  casual  observer  from  Europe  altogether.  American 
books,  American  papers,  American  manners  and  cus- 
toms seem  all  for  the  ninety  and  nine.     .     .     . 

Deeper  and  graver  than  the  superficial  defects  of 
manner  and   execution   and  outlook  to  w^hich   these 


Political  and  Social  Influences     243 

charges  point,  there  are,  one  gathers,  other  things  that 
are  traceable  to  the  same  source.  There  is  a  report 
of  profounder  troubles  in  the  American  social  body, 
of  a  disease  of  corruption  that  renders  American  leg- 
islatures feeble  or  powerless  against  the  great  business 
corporations,  and  of  an  extreme  demoralization  of  the 
police  force.  The  relation  of  the  local  political  organ- 
ization to  the  police  is  fatally  direct,  and  that  sense  of 
ordered  subordination  to  defined  duties  which  distin- 
guishes the  best  police  forces  of  Europe  fails.  Men 
go  into  the  police  force,  we  are  told,  with  the  full 
intention  of  making  it  pay,  of  acquiring  a  saleable 
power. 

There  is  probably  enough  soundness  in  these  im- 
pressions, and  enough  truth  in  these  reports  and 
criticisms,  to  justify  our  saying  that  all  is  not  ideally 
right  with  the  American  atmosphere,  and  that  it  is 
not  to  present  American  conditions  we  must  turn  in 
repudiating  our  British  hereditary  monarchy.  We 
have  to  seek  some  better  thing  upon  which  British 
and  American  institutions  may  converge.  The  Amer- 
ican personal  and  social  character,  just  like  the  Eng- 
lish personal  and  social  character,  displays  very  grave 
defects,  defects  that  must  now  be  reflected  upon,  and 
must  be  in  course  of  acquisition  by  the  children  who 
are  growing  up  in  the  American  state.  And  since  the 
American  is  still  predominantly  of  British  descent, 
and  since  he  has  not  been  separated  long  enough  from 
the  British  to  develop  distinct  inherited  racial  charac- 
teristics, and,  moreover,   since  his  salient  character- 


244  Mankind  in  the  Making 

istics  are  in  sharp  contrast  with  those  of  the  British, 
it  follows  that  the  difference  in  his  character  and 
atmosphere  must  be  due  mainly  to  his  different  social 
and  political  circumstances.  Just  as  the  relative  de- 
fects of  the  common  British,  their  apathy,  their  unrea- 
soning conservatism,  and  their  sordid  scorn  of  intellect- 
ual things  is  bound  up  with  their  politico-social  scheme, 
so,  I  believe,  the  noisiness,  the  mean  practicalness,  and 
the  dyspeptic-driving  restlessness  that  are  the  shad- 
ows of  American  life,  are  bound  up  with  the  politico- 
social  condition  of  America.  The  Englishman  sticks 
in  the  mud,  and  the  American,  with  a  sort  of  violent 
meanness,  cuts  corners,  and  in  both  cases  it  is  quite 
conceivable  that  the  failure  to  follow  the  perfect  way 
is  really  no  symptom  of  a  divergence  of  blood  and 
race,  but  the  natural  and  necessary  outcome  of  the 
mass  of  suggestion  about  them  that  constitutes  their 
respective  worlds. 

The  young  American  grows  up  into  a  world  per- 
vaded by  the  theory  of  democracy,  by  the  theory  that 
all  men  must  have  an  equal  chance  of  happiness,  pos- 
sessions, and  power,  and  in  which  that  theory  is  ex- 
pressed by  a  uniform  equal  suffrage.  No  man  shall 
have  any  power  or  authority  save  by  the  free  consent 
and  delegation  of  his  fellows — that  is  the  idea — and 
to  the  originators  of  this  theory  it  seemed  as  obvious 
as  anything  could  be  that  these  suffrages  would  only 
be  given  to  those  who  did  really  serve  the  happiness 
and  welfare  of  the  greatest  number.  The  idea  was 
reflected  in  the  world  of  business  by  a  conception  of 


Political  and  Social  Influences     245 

free  competition;  no  man  should  grow  rich  except  by 
the  free  preference  of  a  great  following  of  customers. 
Such  is  still  the  American  theory,  and  directly  the  in- 
telligent young  American  grows  up  to  hard  facts  he 
finds  almost  as  much  disillusionment  as  the  intelligent 
young  Englishman.  He  finds  that  in  practice  the  free 
choice  of  a  constituency  reduces  to  two  candidates,  and 
no  more,  selected  by  party  organizations,  and  the  free 
choice  of  the  customer  to  the  goods  proffered  by  a 
diminishing  number  of  elaborately  advertised  bus- 
inesses; he  finds  political  instruments  and  business 
corporations  interlocking  altogether  beyond  his  power 
of  control,  and  that  the  two  ways  to  opportunity,  hon- 
our, and  reward  are  either  to  appeal  coarsely  to  the 
commonest  thoughts  and  feelings  of  the  vulgar  as 
a  political  agitator  or  advertising  trader,  or  else  to 
make  his  peace  with  those  who  do.  And  so  he, 
too,  makes  his  concessions.  They  are  different  con- 
cessions from  those  of  the  young  Englishman,  but 
they  have  this  common  element  of  gravity,  that  he  has 
to  submit  to  conditions  in  which  he  does  not  believe, 
he  has  to  trim  his  course  to  a  conception  of  living  that 
is  perpetually  bending  him  from  the  splendid  and 
righteous  way.  The  Englishman  grows  up  into  a 
world  of  barriers  and  locked  doors,  the  American  into 
an  unorganized,  struggling  crowd.  There  is  an  enor- 
mous premium  in  the  American's  world  upon  force 
and  dexterity,  and  force  in  the  case  of  common  men 
too  often  degenerates  into  brutality,  and  dexterity 
into  downright  trickery  and  cheating.     He  has  got  to 


246  Mankind  in  the  Making 

be  forcible  and  dexterous  within  his  self-respect  if  he 
can.  There  is  an  enormous  discount  on  any  work 
that  does  not  make  money  or  give  a  tangible  result, 
and  except  in  the  case  of  those  whose  lot  has  fallen 
within  certain  prescribed  circles,  certain  oases  of  or- 
ganized culture  and  work,  he  must  advertise  himself 
even  in  science  or  literature  or  art  as  if  he  were  a  pill. 
There  is  no  recognition  for  him  at  all  in  the  world, 
except  the  recognition  of — everybody.  There  will  be 
neither  comfort  nor  the  barest  respect  for  him,  how- 
ever fine  his  achievement,  unless  he  makes  his  achieve- 
ment known,  unless  he  can  make  enough  din  about  it, 
to  pay.  He  has  got  to  shout  down  ninety-nine  shout- 
ing fellow-citizens.  That  is  the  cardinal  fact  in  life 
for  the  great  majority  of  Americans  who  respond  to 
the  stirrings  of  ambition.  If  in  Britain  capacity  is 
discouraged  because  honours  and  power  go  by  pre- 
scription, in  America  it  is  misdirected  because  honours 
do  not  exist  and  power  goes  by  popular  election  and 
advertisement.  In  certain  directions — not  by  any 
means  in  all — unobtrusive  merit,  soundness  of  quality 
that  has  neither  gift  nor  disposition  for  "  push,"  has 
a  better  chance  in  Great  Britain  than  in  America.  A 
sort  of  duty  to  help  and  advance  exceptional  men  is 
recognized  at  any  rate,  even  if  it  is  not  always 
efficiently  discharged,  by  the  privileged  class  in  Eng- 
land, while  in  America  it  is  far  more  acutely  felt,  far 
more  distinctly  impressed  upon  the  young  that  they 
must  "  hustle  "  or  perish. 

It  will  be  argued  that  this  enumeration  of  American 


Political  and  Social  Influences     247 

and  British  defects  is  a  mere  expansion  of  that  famil- 
iar proposition  of  the  logic  text-books,  "  all  men  are 
mortal."  You  have  here,  says  the  objector,  one  of 
two  alternatives,  either  you  must  draw  your  admin- 
istrators, your  legislators,  your  sources  of  honour  and 
reward  from  a  limited,  hereditary,  and  specially- 
trained  class,  who  will  hold  power  as  a  right,  or  you 
must  rely  upon  the  popular  choice  exercised  in  the 
shop  and  at  the  polling  booth.  What  else  can  you 
have  but  inheritance  or  election,  or  some  blend  of  the 
two,  blending  their  faults?  Each  system  has  its  dis- 
advantages, and  the  disadvantages  of  each  system  may 
be  minimized  by  education;  in  particular  by  keeping 
the  culture  and  code  of  honour  of  your  ruling  class 
high  in  the  former  case  and  by  keeping  your  common 
schools  efficient  in  the  latter.  But  the  essential  evils 
of  each  system  are — essential  evils,  and  one  has  to 
suffer  them  and  struggle  against  them,  as  one  has  to 
struggle  perpetually  with  the  pathogenic  bacteria  that 
infest  the  world.  The  theory  of  monarchy  is,  no 
doubt,  inferior  to  the  democratic  theory  in  stimulus, 
but  the  latter  fails  in  qualitative  effect,  much  more 
than  the  former.  There,  the  objector  submits,  lies  the 
quintessence  of  the  matter.  Both  systems  need  watch- 
ing, need  criticism,  the  pruning  knife  and  the  stimu- 
lant, and  neither  is  bad  enough  to  justify  a  revolu- 
tionary change  to  the  other.  In  some  such  conclusion 
as  this  most  of  the  English  people  with  whom  one  can 
discuss  this  question  have  come  to  rest,  and  it  is  to 
this  way  of  looking  at  the  matter  that  one  must  ascribe 


248  Mankind  in  the  Making 

the  apathetic  acquiescence  in  the  British  hereditary 
system,  upon  which  I  have  already  remarked.  There 
is  a  frank  and  excessive  admission  of  every  real  and 
imaginary  fault  of  the  American  system,  and  with  the 
proposition  that  we  are  on  the  horns  of  a  dilemma, 
the  discussion  is  dismissed. 

But  are  we  indeed  on  the  horns  of  a  dilemma,  and 
is  there  no  alternative  to  hereditary  government  tem- 
pered by  elections,  or  government  by  the  ward  politi- 
cian and  the  polling  booth?  Cannot  we  have  that 
sense  and  tradition  of  equal  opportunity  for  all  who 
are  born  into  this  world,  that  generous  and  complete 
acknowledgment  of  the  principle  of  promotion  from 
the  ranks  that  is  the  precious  birthright  of  the  Amer- 
ican, w^ithout  the  political  gerrymandering,  the  practi- 
cal falsification,  that  restricts  that  general  freedom 
at  last  only  to  the  energetic,  and  that  subordinates 
quality  to  quantity  in  every  affair  of  life?  It  is  evi- 
dent that  for  the  New  Republican  to  admit  that  the 
thing  is  indeed  a  dilemma,  that  there  is  nothing  for  it 
but  to  make  the  best  of  whichever  bad  thing  we  have 
at  hand,  that  we  cannot  have  all  we  desire  but  only 
a  greater  or  a  lesser  moiety,  is  a  most  melancholy 
and  hampering  admission.  And,  certainly,  no  New 
Republican  will  agree  without  a  certain  mental 
struggle,  without  a  thorough  and  earnest  inquiry  into 
the  possibility  of  a  third  direction. 

This  matter  has  two  aspects,  it  presents  itself  as 
two  questions :  the  question  first  of  all  of  administra- 
tion, and  the  question  of  honour  and  privilege.    What 


Political  and  Social  Influences     249 

is  it  that  the  New  Republican  idea  really  requires  in 
these  two  matters?  In  the  matter  of  administration 
it  requires  that  every  child  growing  up  in  a  state 
should  feel  that  he  is  part  owner  of  his  state,  com- 
pletely free  in  his  membership,  and  equal  in  oppor- 
tunity to  all  other  children — and  it  also  wants  to  se- 
cure the  management  of  affairs  in  the  hands  of  the 
very  best  men,  not  the  noisiest,  not  the  richest  or  most 
skilfully  advertised,  but  the  best.  Can  these  two 
things  be  reconciled?  In  the  matter  of  honour  and 
privilege,  the  New  Republican  idea  requires  a  separa- 
tion of  honour  from  notoriety ;  it  requires  some  visible 
and  forcible  expression  of  the  essential  conception  that 
there  are  things  more  honourable  than  getting  either 
votes  or  money ;  it  requires  a  class  and  distinctions 
and  privileges  embodying  that  idea — and  also  it  wants 
to  ensure  that  through  the  whole  range  of  life  there 
shall  not  be  one  door  locked  against  the  effort  of  the 
citizen  to  accomplish  the  best  that  is  in  him.  Can 
these  two  things  be  reconciled  also? 

I  have  the  temerity  to  think  that  in  both  cases  the 
conflicting  requirements  can  be  reconciled  far  more 
completely  than  is  commonly  supposed. 

Let  us  take,  first  of  all,  the  question  of  the  recon- 
ciliation as  it  is  presented  in  the  administration  of 
public  affairs.  The  days  have  come  when  the  most 
democratic-minded  of  men  must  begin  to  admit  that 
the  appointment  of  all  rulers  and  officials  by  polling 
the  manhood,  or  most  of  the  manhood,  of  a  country 
does  not  work — let  us  say  perfectly — and  at  no  level 


250  Mankind  in  the  Making 

of  educational  efficiency  does  it  ever  seem  likely  to 
work  in  the  way  those  who  established  it  hoped.  By 
thousands  of  the  most  varied  experiments  the  nine- 
teenth century  has  proved  this  up  to  the  hilt.  The 
fact  that  elections  can  only  be  worked  as  a  choice 
between  two  selected  candidates,  or  groups  of  candi- 
dates, is  the  unforeseen  and  unavoidable  mechanical 
defect  of  all  electoral  methods  with  large  electorates. 
Education  has  nothing  to  do  with  that.  The  elections 
for  the  English  University  members  are  manipulated 
just  as  much  as  the  elections  in  the  least  literate  of 
the  Irish  constituencies.^  It  is  not  a  question  of  acci- 
dentals, but  a  question  of  the  essential  mechanism. 
Men  have  sought  out  and  considered  all  sorts  of  de- 
vices for  qualifying  the  present  method  by  polling; 
Mills's  plural  voting  for  educated  men  will  occur  to 
the  reader;  Hare's  system  of  vote  collection,  and  the 
negative  voting  of  Doctor  Grece;  and  the  defects  of 
these  inventions  have  been  sufficiently  obvious  to  pre- 
vent even  a  trial.  The  changes  have  been  rung  upon 
methods  of  counting ;  cumulative  votes  and  the  pro- 
hibition of  plumping,  and  so  on,  have  been  tried  with- 
out any  essential  modification  of  the  results.  There 
are  various  devices  for  introducing  "  stages  "  in  the 
electoral  process;  the  constituency  elects  electors,  who 

'  There  is  a  very  suggestive  book  on  this  aspect  of  our  general  question, 
The  Crowd,  by  M.  Gustave  le  Bon,  which  should  interest  any  one  who 
finds  this  paper  interesting.  And  the  English  reader  who  would  like  a 
fuller  treatment  of  this  question  has  now  available  also  Ostrogorski's 
great  work,  Democracy  and  the  Organization  0}  Political  Parties. 


Political  and  Social  Influences     251 

elect  the  rulers  and  officers,  for  example,  and  there 
is  also  that  futile  attempt  to  bring  in  the  non-political 
specialist,  the  method  of  electing  governing  bodies 
with  power  to  "  co-opt."  Of  course  they  "  co-opt  " 
their  fellow  politicians,  rejected  candidates,  and  so  on. 
Among  other  expedients  that  people  have  discussed, 
are  such  as  would  make  it  necessary  for  a  man  to  take 
some  trouble  and  display  some  foresight  to  get  regis- 
tered as  a  voter  or  to  pass  an  examination  to  that  end, 
and  such  as  would  confront  him  with  a  voting  paper 
so  complex,  that  only  a  very  intelligent  and  painstak- 
ing man  would  be  able  to  fill  it  up  without  disquali- 
fication. It  certainly  seems  a  reasonable  thing  to  re- 
quire that  the  voter  should  be  able  at  least  to  write 
out  fully  and  spell  correctly  the  name  of  the  man  of 
his  choice.  Except  for  the  last,  there  is  scarcely  any 
of  these  things  but  its  adoption  would  strengthen  the 
power  of  the  political  organizer,  which  they  aim  to 
defeat.  Any  complication  increases  the  need  and  the 
power  of  organization.  ...  It  is  possible  to  believe — 
the  writer  believes — that  with  all  this  burthen  of 
shortcomings,  the  democratic  election  system  is  still, 
on  the  whole,  better  than  a  system  of  hereditary  priv- 
ilege, but  that  is  no  reason  for  concealing  how  defect- 
ive and  disappointing  its  practical  outcome  has  been, 
nor  for  resting  contented  with  it  in  its  present  form.^ 

>  The  statement  of  the  case  is  not  complete  unless  we  mention  that, 
to  the  method  of  rule  by  hereditary  rulers  and  the  appointment  of  officials 
by  noble  patrons  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  rule  by  politicians  exercising 
patronage  on  the  other,  there  is  added  in  the  British  system  the  Chinese 


252  Mankind  in  the  Making 

Is  polling  really  essential  to  the  democratic  idea? 
That  is  the  question  now  very  earnestly  put  to  the 
reader.  We  are  so  terribly  under  the  spell  of  estab- 
lished conditions,  we  are  all  so  obsessed  by  the  per- 
suasion that  the  only  conceivable  way  in  which  a  man 
can  be  expressed  politically  is  by  himself  voting  in 
person,  that  we  do  all  of  us  habitually  overlook  a  pos- 
sibility, a  third  choice,  that  lies  ready  to  our  hands. 
There  is  a  way  by  means  of  which  the  indisputable 
evils  of  democratic  government  may  be  very  greatly 
diminished,  without  destroying  or  even  diminishing — 
indeed,  rather  enhancing — that  invigorating  sense  of 
unhampered  possibilities,  that  the  democratic  idea  in- 
volves. There  is  a  way  of  choosing  your  public  ser- 
vants of  all  sorts  and  effectually  controlling  public 
affairs  on  perfectly  sound  democratic  principles, 
zvithout  ever  having  such  a  thing  as  an  election,  as  it  is 
now  understood,  at  all,  a  way  which  will  permit  of  a 
deliberate  choice  between  numerous  candidates — a 
thing  utterly  impossible  under  the  current  system — 
which  will  certainly  raise  the  average  quality  of  our 
legislators,  and  be  infinitely  saner,  juster,  and  more 

method  of  selecting  oflBcials  by  competitive  examination.  Within  its 
limits  this  has  worked  as  a  most  admirable  corrective  to  patronage;  it  is 
one  of  the  chief  factors  in  the  cleanhandedness  of  British  politicians, 
and  it  is  continually  importing  fresh  young  men  from  outside  to  keep 
officialdom  in  touch  with  the  general  educated  world.  But  it  does  not 
apply,  and  it  does  not  seem  applicable,  to  the  broader  issues  of  politics, 
to  the  appointment  and  endorsement  of  responsible  rulers  and  legisla- 
tors, where  a  score  of  qualities  are  of  more  importance  than  those  an 
examination  can  gauge. 


Political  and  Social  Influences     253 

deliberate  than  our  present  method.  And,  moreover, 
it  is  a  way  that  is  typically  the  invention  of  the  Eng- 
lish people,  and  which  they  use  to-day  in  another  pre- 
cisely parallel  application,  an  application  which  they 
have  elaborately  tested  and  developed  through  a 
period  of  at  least  seven  or  eight  hundred  years,  and 
which  I  must  confess  myself  amazed  to  think  has  not 
already  been  applied  to  our  public  needs.  This  way  is 
the  Jury  system.  The  Jury  system  was  devised  to 
meet  almost  exactly  the  same  problem  that  faces  us 
to-day,  the  problem  of  how  on  the  one  hand  to  avoid 
putting  a  man's  life  or  property  into  the  hands  of  a 
Ruler,  a  privileged  person,  whose  interest  might  be 
unsympathetic  or  hostile,  while  on  the  other  protect- 
ing him  from  the  tumultuous  judgments  of  a  crowd — 
to  save  the  accused  from  the  arbitrary  will  of  King 
and  Noble  without  flinging  him  to  the  mob.  To-day 
it  is  exactly  that  problem  over  again  that  our  peoples 
have  to  solve,  except  that  instead  of  one  individual 
afTair  we  have  now  our  general  affairs  to  place  under 
a  parallel  system.  As  the  community  that  had 
originally  been  small  enough  and  intimate  enough  to 
decide  on  the  guilt  or  innocence  of  its  members  grew 
to  difficult  proportions,  there  developed  this  system 
of  selecting  by  lot  a  number  of  its  common  citizens 
who  were  sworn,  who  were  then  specially  instructed 
and  prepared,  and  who,  in  an  atmosphere  of  solemnity 
and  responsibility  in  absolute  contrast  with  the  uproar 
of  a  public  polling,  considered  the  case  and  condemned 
or  discharged  the  accused.     Let  me  point  out  that 


254  Mankind  in  the  Making 

this  method  is  so  universally  recognized  as  superior 
to  the  common  electoral  method  that  any  one  who 
should  propose  to-day  to  take  the  fate  of  a  man 
accused  of  murder  out  of  the  hands  of  a  jury  and 
place  it  in  the  hands  of  any  British  or  American  con- 
stituency whatever,  even  in  the  hands  of  such  a  highly 
intelligent  constituency  as  one  of  the  British  univer- 
sities, would  be  thought  to  be  carrying  crankiness  be- 
yond the  border  line  of  sanity.  .  .  . 

Why  then  should  we  not  apply  the  Jury  system  to 
the  electoral  riddle? 

Suppose,  for  example,  at  the  end  of  the  Parliament- 
ary term,  instead  of  the  present  method  of  electing  a 
member  of  Parliament,  we  were,  with  every  precau- 
tion of  publicity  and  with  the  most  ingeniously  impar- 
tial machine  that  could  be  invented,  to  select  a  Jury  by 
lot,  a  Jury  sufficiently  numerous  to  be  reasonably  rep- 
resentative of  the  general  feeling  of  the  community 
and  sufficiently  small  to  be  able  to  talk  easily  togeth- 
er and  to  do  the  business  without  debating  society 
methods — between  twenty  and  thirty,  I  think,  might 
be  a  good  working  number — and  suppose  we  were, 
after  a  ceremony  of  swearing  them  and  perhaps  after 
prayer  or  after  a  grave  and  dignified  address  to  them 
upon  the  duty  that  lay  before  them,  to  place  each  of 
these  juries  in  comfortable  quarters  for  a  few  days 
and  isolated  from  the  world,  to  choose  its  legislator. 
They  could  hear,  in  public,  under  a  time  limit,  the 
addresses  of  such  candidates  as  had  presented  them- 
selves, and  they  could  receive,  under  a  limit  of  length 


Political  and  Social  Influences     255 

and  with  proper  precautions  for  publicity,  such  docu- 
ments as  the  candidates  chose  to  submit.  They  could 
also,  in  public,  put  any  questions  they  chose  to  the 
candidates  to  elucidate  their  intentions  or  their  ante- 
cedents, and  they  might  at  any  stage  decide  unani- 
mously to  hear  no  more  of  and  to  dismiss  this  or  that 
candidate  who  encumbered  their  deliberations.  (This 
latter  would  be  an  effectual  way  of  suppressing  the 
candidature  of  cranks,  and  of  half-witted  and  merely 
symbolical  persons.)  The  Jury  between  and  after 
their  interrogations  and  audiences  would  withdraw 
from  the  public  room  to  deliberate  in  privacy. 
Their  deliberations  which,  of  course,  would  be  frank 
and  conversational  to  a  degree  impossible  under  any 
other  conditions,  and  free  from  the  dodges  of  the  ex- 
pert vote  manipulator  altogether,  would,  for  example, 
in  the  case  of  several  candidates  of  the  same  or  similar 
political  colours,  do  away  with  the  absurdity  of  the 
split  vote.  The  jurymen  of  the  same  political  hue 
could  settle  that  affair  among  themselves  before  con- 
tributing to  a  final  decision.  .  .  . 

This  Jury  might  have  certain  powers  of  inquest. 
Provision  might  be  made  for  pleas  against  particular 
candidates;  private  individuals  or  the  advocates  of 
vigilance  societies  might  appear  against  any  particular 
candidate  and  submit  the  facts  about  any  doubtful 
affair,  financial  or  otherwise,  in  which  that  candidate 
had  been  involved.  Witnesses  might  be  called  and 
heard  on  any  question  of  fact,  and  the  implicated  can- 
didate would  explain  his  conduct.     And  at  any  stage 


256  Mankind  in  the  Making 

the  Jury  might  stop  proceedings  and  report  its  selec- 
tion for  the  vacant  post.  Then,  at  the  expiration  of  a 
reasonable  period,  a  year  perhaps,  or  three  years  or 
seven  years,  another  Jury  might  be  summoned  to 
decide  whether  the  sitting  member  should  continue 
in  office  unchallenged  or  be  subjected  to  a  fresh  con- 
test. .  .  . 

This  suggestion  is  advanced  here  in  this  concrete 
form  merely  to  show  the  sort  of  thing  that  might  be 
done ;  it  is  one  sample  suggestion,  one  of  a  great  num- 
ber of  possible  schemes  of  Election  by  Jury.  But  even 
in  this  state  of  crude  suggestion,  it  is  submitted  that  it 
does  serve  to  show  the  practicability  of  a  method  of 
election  more  deliberate  and  thorough,  more  dignified, 
more  calculated  to  impress  the  new  generation  with 
a  sense  of  the  gravity  of  the  public  choice,  and 
infinitely  more  likely  to  give  us  good  rulers  than  the 
present  method,  and  that  it  would  do  so  without  sac- 
rificing any  essential  good  quality  whatever  inherent 
in  the  Democratic  Idea.^     The  case  for  the  use  of  the 

'  There  are  excellent  possibilities,  both  in  the  United  States  and  in 
this  Empire,  of  trying  over  such  a  method  as  this,  and  of  introducing 
it  tentatively  and  piecemeal.  In  Great  Britain  already  there  are  quite 
dififerent  methods  of  election  for  Parliament  existing  side  by  side.  In 
the  Hythe  division  of  Kent,  for  example,  I  vote  by  ballot  with  elaborate 
secrecy;  in  the  University  of  London  I  declare  my  vote  in  a  room  full 
of  people.  The  British  University  constituencies,  or  one  of  them,  might 
very  readily  be  used  as  a  practical  test  of  this  jur\'  suggestion.  There 
is  nothing,  I  believe,  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  to  prevent 
any  one  State  resorting  to  this  characteristically  Anglo-Saxon  method 
of  appointing  its  representatives  in  Congress.  It  is  not  only  in  political 
institutions  that  the  method  may  be  tried.     Any  societies  or  institutions 


Political  and  Social  Influences     257 

Jury  system  becomes  far  stronger  when  we  apply  it 
to  such  problems  as  we  now  attempt  to  solve  by  co- 
opting  experts  upon  various  administrative  bodies. 

The  necessity  either  of  raising  the  quality  of  repre- 
sentative bodies  or  of  replacing  them  not  only  in  ad- 
ministration but  in  legislation  by  bureaucracies  of 
officials  appointed  by  elected  or  hereditary  rulers,  is 
one  that  presses  on  all  thoughtful  men,  and  is  by  no 
means  an  academic  question  needed  to  round  off  this 
New  Republican  theory.  The  necessity  becomes  more 
urgent  every  day,  as  scientific  and  economic  develop- 
ments raise  first  one  affair  and  then  another  to  the 
level  of  public  or  quasi-public  functions.  In  the  last 
century,  locomotion,  lighting,  heating,  education, 
forced  themselves  upon  public  control  or  public  man- 
agement, and  now  with  the  development  of  Trusts  a 
whole  host  of  businesses,  that  were  once  the  affair  of 
competing  private  concerns,  claim  the  same  attention. 
Government  by  hustings'  bawling,  newspaper  clam- 
our, and  ward  organization,  is  more  perilous  every 
day  and  more  impotent,  and  unless  we  are  prepared 
to  see  a  government  dc  facto  of  rich  business  organ- 
izers override  the  government  de  jure,  or  to  relapse 

that  have  to  send  delegates  to  a  conference  or  meeting  might  very  easily 
bring  this  conception  to  a  practical  test.  Even  if  it  does  not  prove 
practicable  as  a  substitute  for  election  by  polling,  it  might  be  found  of 
some  value  for  the  appointment  of  members  of  the  specialist  type,  for 
whom  at  present  we  generally  resort  to  co-option.  In  many  cases 
where  the  selection  of  specialists  was  desirable  to  complete  pubHc  bodies, 
juries  of  educated  men  of  the  British  Grand  Jury  type  might  be  highly 
serviceable. 


258  Mankind  in  the  Making 

upon  a  practical  oligarchy  of  officials,  an  oligarchy 
that  will  certainly  decline  in  efficiency  in  a  generation 
or  so,  we  must  set  ourselves  most  earnestly  to  this 
problem  of  improving  representative  methods.  It  is 
in  the  direction  of  the  substitution  of  the  Jury  method 
for  a  general  poll  that  the  only  practicable  line  of  im- 
provement known  to  the  present  writer  seems  to  lie, 
and  until  it  has  been  tried  it  cannot  be  conceded  that 
democratic  government  has  been  tried  and  exhaust- 
ively proved  inadequate  to  the  complex  needs  of  the 
modern  state. 

So  much  for  the  question  of  administration.  We 
come  now  to  a  second  need  in  the  modern  state  if  it 
is  to  get  the  best  result  from  the  citizens  born  into  it, 
and  that  is  the  need  of  honours  and  privileges  to  re- 
ward and  enhance  services  and  exceptional  personal 
qualities  and  so  to  stir  and  ennoble  that  emulation 
which  is,  under  proper  direction,  the  most  useful  to 
the  constructive  statesman  of  all  human  motives.  In 
the  United  States  titles  are  prohibited  by  the  consti- 
tution, in  Great  Britain  they  go  by  prescription.  But 
it  is  possible  to  imagine  titles  and  privileges  that  are 
not  hereditary,  and  that  would  be  real  symbols  of 
human  worth  entirely  in  accordance  with  the  Repub- 
lican Idea.  It  is  one  of  the  stock  charges  against 
Republicanism  that  success  in  America  is  either  polit- 
ical or  financial.  In  England,  in  addition,  success  is 
also  social,  and  there  is,  one  must  admit,  a  sort  of 
recognition  accorded  to  intellectual  achievement, 
which    some    American    scientific    men    have    found 


Political  and  Social  Influences     259 

reason  to  envy.  In  America,  of  course,  just  as  in 
Great  Britain,  there  exists  that  very  enviable  distinc- 
tion, the  honorary  degree  of  a  university ;  but  in  Amer- 
ica it  is  tainted  by  the  freedom  with  which  bogus 
universities  can  be  organized,  and  by  the  unchallenged 
assumptions  of  quacks.  In  Great  Britain  the  honor- 
ary degree  of  a  university,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  it 
goes  almost  as  a  matter  of  course  to  every  casual 
Prince,  is  a  highly  desirable  recognition  of  public 
services.  Beyond  this  there  are  certain  British  dis- 
tinctions that  might  very  advantageously  be  paralleled 
in  America,  the  Fellowship  of  the  Royal  Society,  for 
example,  and  that  really  very  fine  honour,  as  yet 
untainted  by  the  class  of  men  who  tout  for  baronetcies 
and  peerages,  the  Privy  Council.  .  .  . 

There  are  certain  points  in  this  question  that  are 
too  often  overlooked.  In  the  first  place,  honours  and 
titles  need  not  be  hereditary ;  in  the  second,  they  need 
not  be  conferred  by  the  political  administration ;  and, 
in  the  third,  they  are  not  only — as  the  French  Legion 
of  Honour  shows — entirely  compatible  with,  but  they 
are  a  necessary  complement  to  the  Republican  Idea. 

The  bad  results  of  entrusting  honours  to  the  Gov- 
ernment are  equally  obvious  in  France  and  Great 
Britain.  They  are  predominantly  given,  quite  natu- 
rally, for  political  services,  because  they  are  given  by 
politicians  too  absorbed  to  be  aware  of  men  outside 
the  political  world.  In  Great  Britain  the  process  is 
modified  rather  than  improved  by  what  one  knows 
as  court  influence.     And  in  spite  of  the  real  and  sus- 


26o  Mankind  in  the  Making 

tained  efficiency  of  the  Royal  Society  in  distinguish- 
ing meritorious  scientific  workers,  the  French  Acad- 
emy, which  has  long  been  captured  by  aristocratic 
dilettanti,  and  the  English  Royal  Academy  of  Arts, 
demonstrate  the  essential  defects  and  dangers  of  a 
body  which  fills  its  own  gaps.  But  there  is  no  reason 
why  a  national  system  of  honours  and  titles  should 
not  be  worked  upon  a  quite  new  basis,  suggested  by 
these  various  considerations.  Let  us,  simply  for 
tangibleness,  put  the  thing  as  a  concrete  plan  for  the 
reader's  consideration. 

There  might,  for  example,  be  a  lowest  stage  which 
would  include — as  the  English  knighthood  once  in- 
cluded— almost  every  citizen  capable  of  initiative,  all 
the  university  graduates,  all  the  men  qualified  to  prac- 
tice the  responsible  professions,  all  qualified  teachers, 
all  the  men  in  the  Army  and  Navy  promoted  to  a  cer- 
tain rank,  all  seamen  qualified  to  navigate  a  vessel, 
all  the  ministers  recognized  by  properly  organized  re- 
ligious bodies,  all  public  officials  exercising  command ; 
quasi-public  organizations  might  nominate  a  certain 
proportion  of  their  staffs,  and  organized  trade-unions 
with  any  claim  to  skill,  a  certain  proportion  of  their 
men,  their  "decent"  men,  and  every  artist  or  writer 
who  could  submit  a  passable  diploma  work ;  it  would 
be,  in  fact,  a  mark  set  upon  every  man  or  woman  who 
was  qualified  to  do  something  or  who  had  done  some- 
thing, as  distinguished  from  the  man  who  had  done 
nothing  in  the  world,  the  mere  common  unenterpris- 
ing esurient  man.     It  might  carrj-  many  little  priv- 


Political  and  Social  Influences     261 

ileges  in  public  matters — for  instance,  it  might  qualify 
for  certain  electoral  juries.  And  from  this  class  the 
next  rank  might  easily  be  drawn  in  a  variety  of  ways. 
In  a  modern  democratic  state  there  must  be  many 
fountains  of  honour.  That  is  a  necessity  upon  which 
one  cannot  insist  too  much.  There  must  be  no  court, 
no  gang,  no  traditional  inalterable  tribunal.  Local 
legislative  bodies,  for  example, — in  America,  state 
legislatures  and  in  England,  county  councils, — might 
confer  rank  on  a  limited  number  of  men  or  women 
yearly;  juries  drawn  from  certain  special  constit- 
uencies, from  the  roll  of  the  medical  profession,  or 
from  the  Army,  might  assemble  periodically  to  nomi- 
nate their  professional  best,  the  Foreign  or  Colonial 
Office  might  confer  recognition  for  political  services, 
the  university  governing  bodies  might  be  entrusted 
with  the  power — just  as  in  the  middle  ages  many 
great  men  could  confer  knighthood.  From  among 
these  distinguished  gentlemen  of  the  second  grade 
still  higher  ranks  might  be  drawn.  Local  juries  might 
select  a  local  chief  dignitary  as  their  "earl,"  let  us  say, 
from  among  the  resident  men  of  rank,  and  there  is  no 
reason  why  certain  great  constituencies,  the  medical 
calling,  the  engineers,  should  not  specify  one  or  two 
of  their  professional  leaders,  their  "dukes."  There 
are  many  occasions  of  local  importance  when  an  hon- 
ourable figure-head  is  needed.  The  British  fall  back 
on  the  local  hereditary  peer  or  invite  a  prince,  too  often 
some  poor  creature  great  only  by  convention — and 
what  the  Americans  do  I  do  not  know,  unless  they  use 


262  Mankind  in  the  Making 

a  Boss.  There  are  many  occasions  of  something  more 
than  ceremonial  importance  when  a  responsible  man 
publicly  honoured  and  publicly  known,  and  not  a  pro- 
fessional politician,  is  of  the  utmost  convenience.  And 
there  are  endless  affairs,  lists,  gatherings,  when  the 
only  alternative  to  rank  is  scramble.  For  myself  I 
would  not  draw  the  line  at  such  minor  occasions  for 
precedence.  A  Second  Chamber  is  an  essential  part 
of  the  political  scheme  of  all  the  English-speaking 
communities,  and  almost  always  it  is  intended  to  pre- 
sent stabler  interests  and  a  smaller  and  more  selected 
constituency  than  the  lower  house.  From  such  a  life 
nobility  as  I  have  sketched  a  Second  Chamber  could 
be  drawn  much  as  the  Irish  representative  peers  in  the 
House  of  Lords  are  drawn  from  the  general  peerage 
of  Ireland.  It  would  be  far  less  party  bound  and  far 
less  mercenary  than  the  American  Senate,  and  far 
more  intelligent  and  capable  than  the  British  House 
of  Lords.  And  either  of  these  bodies  could  be  brought 
under  a  process  of  deliberate  conversion  in  this  di- 
rection with  scarcely  any  revolutionary  shock  at  all.^ 

'  In  the  case  of  the  House  of  Lords,  for  example,  the  process  of  con- 
version might  begin  by  extending  the  Scotch  and  Irish  system  to  England, 
and  substituting  a  lesser  number  of  representative  peers  for  the  existing 
English  peerage.  Then  it  would  merely  re\ive  a  question  that  was 
already  under  discussion  in  middle  Victorian  times,  to  create  non- 
hereditary  peerages  in  the  three  kingdoms.  The  several  Privy  Councils 
might  next  be  added  to  the  three  national  constituencies  by  which  and 
from  which  the  representative  peers  were  appointed,  and  then  advisory 
boards  might  be  called  from  the  various  Universities  and  organized 
professions,  and  from  authoritative  Colonial  bodies  to  recommend  men 
to  be  added  to  the   voting  peerage.     Life  peers  already  exist.     Tlie 


Political  and  Social  Influences     263 

When  these  issues  of  public  honour  and  efficient 
democratic  administration  have  begun  to  move 
towards  a  definite  solution,  the  community  will  be  in 
a  position  to  extend  the  operation  of  the  new  methods 
towards  a  profounder  revolution,  the  control  of  pri- 
vate property.  "We  are  all  Socialists  nowadays," 
and  it  is  needless,  therefore,  to  argue  here  at  any 
length  to  establish  the  fact  that  beyond  quite  personal 
belongings  all  Property  is  the  creation  of  society,  and 
in  reality  no  more  than  an  administrative  device.  At 
present,  in  spite  of  some  quite  hideous  and  mischievous 
local  aspects,  the  institution  of  Property,  even  in  land 
and  the  shares  of  quasi-public  businesses,  probably 
gives  as  efficient  a  method  of  control,  and  even  it  may 
be  a  more  efficient  method  of  control  than  any  that 
could  be  devised  to  replace  it  under  existing  con- 
ditions.   We  have  no  public  bodies  and  no  methods  of 

law  is  represented  by  life  peers.  The  lords  spiritual  are  representative 
life  peers — they  are  the  senior  bishops,  and  they  are  appointed  to  repre- 
sent a  corporation — the  Established  Church.  So  a  generally  non- 
hereditary  functional  nobility  might  come  into  being  without  any  \iolent 
break  with  the  present  condition  of  things.  The  conversion  of  the 
American  Senate  would  be  a  more  difficult  matter,  because  the  method 
of  appointment  of  Senators  is  more  stereotyped  altogether,  and,  since 
1800,  unhappily  quite  bound  up  with  the  political  party  system.  The 
Senate  is  not  a  body  of  varied  and  fluctuating  origins  into  which  new 
elements  can  be  quietly  inserted.  An  English  writer  cannot  estimate 
how  dear  the  sacred  brace  of  Senators  for  each  State  may  or  may  not 
be  to  the  American  heart.  But  the  possibility  of  Congress  delegating 
the  power  to  appoint  additional  Senators  to  certain  non-political  bodies, 
or  to  juries  of  a  specific  constitution,  is  at  least  thinkable  as  the  begin- 
ning of  a  movement  that  would  come  at  last  into  parallelism  with  that 
in  the  British  Empire. 


264  Mankind  in  the  Making 

check  and  control  sufficiently  trustworthy  to  justify 
extensive  expropriations.  Even  the  municipalization 
of  industries  needs  to  go  slowly  until  municipal  areas 
have  been  brought  more  into  conformity  with  the  con- 
ditions of  efficient  administration.  Areas  too  cramped 
and  areas  that  overlap  spell  waste  and  conflicting 
authorities,  and  premature  municipalization  in  such 
areas  will  lead  only  to  the  final  triumph  of  the  private 
company.  Political  efficiency  must  precede  Socialism.'^ 
But  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  spectacle  of  irre- 
sponsible property  is  a  terribly  demoralizing  force  in 
the  development  of  each  generation.  It  is  idle  to  deny 
that  Property,  both  in  Great  Britain  and  America, 
works  out  into  a  practical  repudiation  of  that  equality, 
political  democracy  so  eloquently  asserts.  There  is  a 
fatalistic  submission  to  inferiority  on  the  part  of  an 
overwhelming  majority  of  those  born  poor,  they  hold 
themselves  cheap  in  countless  ways,  and  they  accept 
as  natural  the  use  of  wealth  for  wanton  pleasure  and 
purposes  absolutely  mischievous,  they  despair  of  effort 
in  the  public  service,  and  find  their  only  hope  in 
gambling,  sharp  greedy  trading,  or  in  base  acquies- 
cences  to  the  rich.  The  good  New  Republican  can 
only  regard  our  present  system  of  Property  as  a 
terribly  unsatisfactory  expedient  and  seek  with  all  his 
power  to  develop  a  better  order  to  replace  it. 

There  are  certain  lines  of  action  in  this  matter  that 
cannot  but  be  beneficial,  and  it  is  upon  these  that  the 
New  Republican  will,  no  doubt,  go.     One  excellent 

'  See  Appendix  I. 


Political  and  Social  Influences     265 

thing,  for  example,  would  be  to  insist  that  beyond  the 
limits  of  a  reasonable  amount  of  personal  property, 
the  community  is  justified  in  demanding  a  much 
higher  degree  of  efficiency  in  the  property-holder  than 
in  the  case  of  the  common  citizen,  to  require  him  or 
her  to  be  not  only  sane  but  capable,  equal  mentally 
and  bodily  to  a  great  charge.  The  heir  to  a  great 
property  should  possess  a  satisfactory  knowledge  of 
social  and  economic  science,  and  should  have  studied 
with  a  view  to  his  great  responsibilities.  The  age  of 
twenty-one  is  scarcely  high  enough  for  the  manage- 
ment of  a  great  estate,  and  to  raise  the  age  of  free 
administration  for  the  owners  of  great  properties,  and 
to  specify  a  superannuation  age  would  be  a  wise  and 
justifiable  measure.^  There  should  also  be  a  possibil- 
ity of  intervention  in  the  case  of  maladministration, 
and  a  code  of  offences — habitual  drunkenness,  for  ex- 
ample, assaults  of  various  kinds — offences  that  estab- 
lished the  fact  of  unfitness  and  resulted  in  deposition, 
might  be  drawn  up.  It  might  be  found  desirable  in 
the  case  of  certain  crimes  and  misdemeanours,  to  add 
to  existing  penalties  the  transfer  of  all  real  or  share 
properties  to  trustees.  Vigorous  confiscation  is  a  par- 
ticularly logical  punishment  for  the  proven  corruption 
of  public  officers  by  any  property  owner  or  group  of 
property  owners.  Rich  men  who  bribe  are  a  danger 
to  any  state.  Beyond  the  limits  of  lunacy  it  might  be 
possible  to  define  a  condition  of  malignancy  or  ruth- 

*  Something  of  the  sort  is  already  secured  in  France  by  the  power 
of  the  Conseil  de  Famille  to  expropriate  a  spendthrift. 


266  Mankind  in  the  Making 

lessness  that  would  justify  confiscation,  attempts  to 
form  corners  in  the  necessities  of  Hfe,  for  example, 
could  be  taken  as  evidence  of  such  a  condition.  All 
such  measures  as  this  would  be  far  more  beneficial 
than  the  immediate  improvement  they  would  effect  in 
public  management.  They  would  infect  the  whole 
social  body  with  the  sense  that  property  was  saturated 
with  responsibility  and  was  in  effect  a  trust,  and  that 
would  be  a  good  influence  upon  rich  and  poor  alike. 

Moreover,  as  public  bodies  became  more  ef^cient 
and  more  trustworthy,  the  principle  already  estab- 
lished in  British  social  polity  by  Sir  William  Vernon 
Harcourt's  Death  Duties,  the  principle  of  whittling 
great  properties  at  each  transfer,  might  be  very 
materially  extended.  Every  transfer  of  property 
might  establish  a  state  mortgage  for  some  fraction 
of  the  value  of  that  property.  The  fraction  might  be 
small  when  the  recipient  was  a  public  institution,  con- 
siderable in  the  case  of  a  son  or  daughter,  and  almost 
all  for  a  distant  relative  or  no  kindred  at  all.  By  such 
devices  the  evil  influence  of  property  acquired  by  mere 
accidents  would  be  reduced  without  any  great  dis- 
couragement of  energetic,  enterprising,  and  inventive 
men.  And  a  man  ambitious  to  found  a  family  might 
still  found  one  if  he  took  care  to  marry  wisely  and 
train  and  educate  his  children  to  the  level  of  the 
position  he  designed  for  them. 

While  the  New  Republican  brings  such  expedients 
as  this  to  bear  upon  property  from  above,  there  will 
also  be  the  expedients  of  the  Minimum  Wage  and  the 


Political  and  Social  Influences     267 

Minimum  Standard  of  Life,  already  discussed  in  the 
third  of  these  papers,  controlHng  it  from  below.  Lim- 
ited in  this  way,  property  will  resemble  a  river  that 
once  swamped  a  whole  country-side,  but  has  now  been 
banked  within  its  channel.  Even  when  these  expedi- 
ents have  been  exhaustively  worked  out,  they  will  fall 
far  short  of  that  "abolition  of  property"  which  is  the 
crude  expression  of  Socialism.  There  is  a  certain 
measure  of  property  in  a  state  which  involves  the  max- 
imum of  individual  freedom.  Either  above  or  below 
that  Optimum  one  passes  towards  slavery.  The  New 
Republican  is  a  New  Republican,  and  he  tests  all 
things  by  their  affect  upon  the  evolution  of  man;  he 
is  a  Socialist  or  an  Individualist,  a  Free  Trader  or  a 
Protectionist,  a  Republican  or  a  Democrat  just  so  far, 
and  only  so  far,  as  these  various  principles  of  public 
policy  subserve  his  greater  end. 

This  crude  sketch  of  a  possible  scheme  of  honour 
and  privilege,  and  of  an  approximation  towards  the 
socialization  of  property  will,  at  any  rate,  show  that 
in  this  matter,  as  in  the  matter  of  political  control, 
the  alternative  of  the  British  system  or  the  American 
system  does  not  exhaust  human  possibilities.  There 
is  also  the  Twentieth  Century  System,  which  we  New 
Republicans  have  to  discover  and  discuss  and  bring  to 
the  test  of  experience.  And  for  the  sake  of  the  edu- 
cation of  our  children,  which  is  the  cardinal  business 
of  our  lives,  we  must  refuse  all  convenient  legal 
fictions  and  underhand  ways,  and  see  to  it  that  the 
system  is  as  true  to  the  reality  of  life  and  to  right  and 


268  Mankind  in  the  Making 

justice  as  we  can,  in  our  light  and  generation,  make  it. 
The  child  must  learn  not  only  from  preacher  and 
parent  and  book,  but  from  the  whole  frame  and  order 
of  life  about  it,  that  truth  and  sound  living  and  service 
are  the  only  trustworthy  ways  to  either  honour  or 
power,  and  that,  save  for  the  unavoidable  accidents 
of  life,  they  are  very  certain  ways.  And  then  he  will 
have  a  fair  chance  to  grow  up  neither  a  smart  and 
hustling  cheat — for  the  American  at  his  worst  is  no 
more  and  no  less  than  that — nor  a  sluggish  disin- 
genuous snob — as  the  Briton  too  often  becomes — but 
a  proud,  ambitious,  clean-handed,  and  capable  man. 


VIII 

The  Cultivation  of  the  Imagination 

§  I 

In  the  closing  years  of  the  school  period  comes  the 
dawn  of  the  process  of  adolescence,  and  the  simple 
egotism,  the  egotistical  affections  of  the  child  begin 
to  be  troubled  by  new  interests,  new  vague  impulses, 
and  presently  by  a  flood  of  as  yet  formless  emotions. 
The  race,  the  species,  is  claiming  the  individual, 
endeavouring  to  secure  the  individual  for  its  greater 
ends.  In  the  space  of  a  few  years  the  almost  sexless 
boy  and  girl  have  become  consciously  sexual,  are 
troubled  by  the  still  mysterious  possibilities  of  love, 
are  stirred  to  discontent  and  adventure,  are  reaching 
out  imaginatively  or  actively  towards  what  is  at  last 
the  recommencement  of  things,  the  essential  fact  in 
the  perennial  reshaping  of  the  order  of  the  world. 
This  is  indeed  something  of  a  second  birth.  At  its 
beginning  the  child  we  have  known  begins  to  recede, 
the  new  individuality  gathers  itself  together  with  a 
sort  of  shy  jealousy,  and  withdraws  from  the  confident 
intimacy  of  childhood  into  a  secret  seclusion;  all 
parents  know  of  that  loss;  at  its  end  we  have  an 
adult,  formed  and  determinate,  for  whom  indeed  the 

269 


270  Mankind  in  the  Making 

drama  and  conflict  of  life  is  still  only  beginning,  but 
who  is,  nevertheless,  in  a  very  serious  sense  finished 
and  made.  The  quaint,  lovable,  larval  human  being 
has  passed  then  into  the  full  imago,  before  whom 
there  is  no  further  change  in  kind  save  age  and 
decay. 

This  development  of  the  sexual  being,  of  personal 
dreams,  and  the  adult  imagination  is  already  com- 
mencing in  the  early  teens.  It  goes  on  through  all 
the  later  phases  of  the  educational  process,  and  it 
ends,  or,  rather,  it  is  transformed  by  insensible  de- 
grees into  the  personal  realities  of  adult  life. 

Now  this  second  birth  within  the  body  of  the  first 
differs  in  many  fundamental  aspects  from  that  first. 
The  first  birth  and  the  body  abound  in  inevitable 
things;  for  example,  features,  gestures,  aptitudes, 
complexions,  and  colours,  are  inherited  beyond  any 
power  of  perversion;  but  the  second  birth  is  the 
unfolding  not  of  shaped  and  settled  things  but  of  possi- 
bilities, of  extraordinarily  plastic  mental  faculties. 
No  doubt  there  are  in  each  developing  individual 
dispositions  towards  this  or  that — tendencies,  a  bias 
in  the  texture  this  way  or  that — but  the  form  of  it 
all  is  extraordinarily  a  matter  of  suggestion  and  the 
influence  of  deliberate  and  accidental  moulding  forces. 
The  universal  Will  to  live  is  there,  peeping  out  at  first 
in  little  curiosities,  inquiries,  sudden  disgusts,  sudden 
fancies,  the  stumbling,  slow  realization  that  for  this 
in  a  mysteriously  predominant  way  we  live,  and 
growling   stronger,   growing  presently,  in   the  great 


The  Cultivation  of  the  Imagination     27 1 

multitude  of  cases,  to  passionate  preferences  and 
powerful  desires.  This  flow  of  sex  comes  like  a  great 
river  athwart  the  plain  of  our  personal  and 
egoistic  schemes,  a  great  river  with  its  rapids,  with 
its  deep  and  silent  places,  a  river  of  uncertain 
droughts,  a  river  of  overwhelming  floods,  a  river  no 
one  who  would  escape  drowning  may  afford  to  ignore. 
Moreover,  it  is  the  very  axis  and  creator  of  our  world 
valley,  the  source  of  all  our  power  in  life,  and  the 
irrigator  of  all  things.  In  the  microcosm  of  each 
individual,  as  in  the  microcosm  of  the  race,  this  flood 
is  a  cardinal  problem. 

And  from  its  very  nature  this  is  a  discussion  of 
especial  difficulty,  because  it  touches  all  of  us — 
except  for  a  few  peculiar  souls — so  intimately  and 
so  disturbingly.  I  had  purposed  to  call  this  paper 
"Sex  and  the  Imagination,"  and  then  I  had  a  sudden 
vision  of  the  thing  that  happens.  The  vision  pre- 
sented a  casual  reader  seated  in  a  library,  turning 
over  books  and  magazines  and  casting  much  excellent 
wisdom  aside,  and  then  suddenly,  as  it  were,  waking 
up  at  that  title,  arrested,  displaying  a  furtive  alert- 
ness, reading,  flushed  and  eager,  nosing  through  the 
article.  .  .  .  That  in  a  vignette  is  the  trouble  in  all 
this  discussion.  Were  we  angels — !  But  we  are  not 
angels;  we  are  all  involved.  If  we  are  young  we  are 
deep  in  it,  whether  we  would  have  it  so  or  not;  if 
we  are  old,  even  if  we  are  quite  old,  our  memories 
still  stretch  out,  living  sensitive  threads  from  our 
tender  vanity  to  the  great  trouble.     Detachment  is 


272  Mankind  in  the  Making 

impossible.     The  nearest  we  can  get  to  detachment 
is  to  recognize  that. 

About  this  question  the  tragi-comic  web  of  human 
absurdity  thickens  to  its  closest.  When  has  there 
ever  been  a  lucid  view  or  ever  will  be  of  this  great 
business?  Here  is  the  common  madness  of  our 
species,  here  is  all  a  tissue  of  fine  unreasonableness 
— to  which,  no  doubt,  we  are  in  the  present  paper 
infinitesimally  adding.  One  has  a  vision  of  prepos- 
terous proceedings;  great,  fat,  wheezing,  strigilated 
Roman  emperors,  neat  Parisian  gentlemen  of  the 
latest  cult,  the  good  Saint  Anthony  rolling  on  his 
thorns,  and  the  piously  obscene  Durtal  undergoing 
his  expiatory  temptations,  Mahomet  and  Brigham 
Young  receiving  supplementary  revelations,  grim 
men  babbling  secrets  to  schoolgirls,  enamoured 
errand  boys,  amorous  old  women,  debauchees  dream- 
ing themselves  thoroughly  sensible  men  and  going 
about  their  queer  proceedings  with  insane  self-satis- 
faction, beautiful  witless  young  persons  dressed  in 
the  most  amazing  things,  all  down  the  vista  of  history 
— a  Vision  of  Fair  Women — looking  their  conscious 
queenliest,  sentimentalists  crawling  over  every  aspect 
and  leaving  tracks  like  snails,  flushed  young  block- 
heads telling  the  world  "all  about  women,"  intrigue, 
folly — you  have  as  much  of  it  as  one  pen  may  con- 
dense in  old  Burton's  Anatomy — and  through  it  all 
a  vast  multitude  of  decent,  respectable  bodies  pre- 
tending to  have  quite  solved  the  problem — until 
one  day,  almost  shockingly,  you  get  their  secret  from 


The  Cultivation  of  the  Imagination     273 

a  careless  something  glancing  out  of  the  eyes.  Most 
preposterous  of  all  for  some  reason  is  a  figure — 
one  is  maliciously  disposed  to  present  it  as  feminine 
and  a  little  unattractive,  goloshed  for  preference,  and 
saying  in  a  voice  of  cultivated  flatness,  ''Why  cannot 
we  be  perfectly  plain  and  sensible,  and  speak  quite 
frankly  about  this  matter?"  The  answer  to  which 
one  conceives,  would  be  near  the  last  conclusions  of 
Philosophy. 

So  much  seethes  about  the  plain  discussion  of  the 
question  of  sexual  institutions.  One  echoes  the  in- 
telligent inquiry  of  that  quite  imaginary,  libellously 
conceived  lady  in  goloshes  with  a  smile  and  a  sigh. 
As  well  might  she  ask,  "Why  shouldn't  I  keep  my 
sandwiches  in  the  Ark  of  the  Covenant?  .  .  .  There's 
room!"  ''Of  course  there's  room,"  one  answers, 
"but —  As  things  are,  Madam,  it  is  inadvisable  to 
try.  You  see — for  one  thing — people  are  so  peculiar. 
The  quantity  of  loose  stones  in  this  neighbour- 
hood. .  .  ." 

The  predominant  feeling  about  the  discussion  of 
these  things  is,  to  speak  frankly,  Fear.  We  know, 
very  many  of  us,  that  our  present  state  has  many 
evil  aspects,  seems  unjust  and  wasteful  of  human 
happiness,  is  full  of  secret  and  horrible  dangers, 
abounding  in  cruelties  and  painful  things;  that  our 
system  of  sanctions  and  prohibitions  is  wickedly 
venial,  pressing  far  more  gravely  on  the  poor  than 
on  the  rich,  and  that  it  is  enormously  sapped  by 
sentimentalities  of  various  sorts  and  undermined  and 


274  Mankind  in  the  Making 

qualified  by  secret  cults;  it  is  a  clogged  and  an  ill- 
made  and  dishonest  machine,  but  we  have  a  dread,  in 
part  instinctive,  in  part,  no  doubt,  the  suggestion  of 
our  upbringing  and  atmosphere,  of  any  rash  altera- 
tions, of  any  really  free  examination  of  its  constitu- 
tion. We  are  not  sure  or  satisfied  where  that  process 
of  examination  may  not  take  us;  many  more  people 
can  take  machines  to  pieces  than  can  put  them 
together  again.  Mr.  Grant  Allen  used  to  call  our 
current  prohibitions  Taboos.  Well,  the  fact  is,  in 
these  matters  there  is  something  that  is  probably  an 
instinct,  a  deeply  felt  necessity  for  Taboos.  We 
know  perhaps  that  our  Taboos  were  not  devised  on 
absolutely  reasonable  grounds,  but  we  are  afraid  of 
just  how  many  may  not  collapse  before  a  purely 
reasonable  inquiry.  We  are  afraid  of  thinking  quite 
freely  even  in  private.  We  doubt  whether  it  is  wise 
to  begin,  though  only  in  the  study  and  alone.  "Why 
should  w^e — ?  .  .  .  Why  should  we  not — ?"  And 
the  thought  of  a  public  discussion  without  limitations 
by  a  hasty  myriad  untrained  to  think,  does,  indeed, 
raise  an  image  of  consequences  best  conveyed  per- 
haps by  that  fine  indefinite  phrase,  "A  Moral  Chaos." 
These  people  who  are  for  the  free,  frank,  and  open 
discussion  assume  so  much;  they  either  intend  a 
sham  with  foregone  conclusions,  or  they  have  not 
thought  of  all  sorts  of  things  inherent  in  the  natural 
silliness  of  contemporary  man. 

On  the  whole  I  think  a  man  or  woman  who  is  no 
longer  a  fabric  of  pure  emotion  may,  if  there  is  indeed 


The  Cultivation  of  the  Imagination     275 

the  passion  for  truth  and  the  clear  sight  of  things  to 
justify  research,  venture  upon  this  sinister  seeming 
wilderness  of  speculation,  and  I  think,  too,  it  is  very 
probable  the  courageous  persistent  explorer  will  end 
at  last  not  so  very  remote  from  the  starting-point, 
but  above  it.  as  it  were,  on  a  crest  that  will  give  a 
wider  view,  reaching  over  many  things  that  now  con- 
fine the  lower  vision.  But  these  are  perilous  paths, 
it  must  always  be  remembered.  This  is  no  public 
playground.  One  may  distrust  the  conventional 
code,  and  one  may  leave  it  in  thought,  long  before  one 
is  justified  in  leaving  it  either  in  expressed  opinion  or 
in  act.  We  are  social  animals;  we  cannot  live  alone; 
manifestly  from  the  nature  of  the  question,  here,  at 
any  rate,  we  must  associate  and  group.  For  all  who 
find  the  accepted  righteousness  not  good  enough  or 
clear  enough  for  them,  there  is  the  chance  of  an 
ironical  destiny.  We  must  look  well  to  our  com- 
pany, as  we  come  out  of  the  city  of  the  common 
practice  and  kick  its  dust  from  our  superior  soles. 
There  is  an  abominable  rifif-rafif  gone  into  those 
thickets  for  purposes  quite  other  than  the  discovery 
of  the  right  thing  to  do,  for  quite  other  motives  than 
our  high  intellectual  desire.  There  are  ugly  rebels 
and  born  rascals,  cheats  by  instinct,  and  liars  to 
women,  swinish  unbelievers  who  would  compromise 
us  with  their  erratic  pursuit  of  a  miscellaneous  collec- 
tion of  strange  fancies  and  betray  us  callously  at  last. 
Because  a  man  does  not  find  the  law  pure  justice,  that 
is  no  reason  why  he  should  take  his  gold  to  a  thieves' 


276  Mankind  in  the  Making 

kitchen;  because  he  does  not  think  the  city  a  sanitary 
place,  why  he  should  pitch  his  tent  on  a  dust-heap 
amidst  pariah  dogs.  Because  we  criticize  the  old 
limitations  that  does  not  bind  us  to  the  creed  of 
unfettered  liberty.  I  very  much  doubt  if,  when  at 
last  the  days  for  the  sane  complete  discussion  of  our 
sexual  problems  come,  it  will  give  us  anything  at  all 
in  the  way  of  "Liberty,"  as  most  people  understand 
that  word.  In  the  place  of  the  rusty  old  manacles, 
the  chain  and  shot,  the  iron  yoke,  cruel,  ill-fitting, 
violent  implements  from  which  it  was  yet  possible  to 
wriggle  and  escape  to  outlawry,  it  may  be  the  world 
will  discover  only  a  completer  restriction,  will  develop 
a  scheme  of  neat  gyves,  light  but  efficient,  beautifully 
adaptable  to  the  wrists  and  ankles,  never  chafing, 
never  oppressing,  slipped  on  and  worn  until  at  last, 
like  the  mask  of  the  Happy  Hypocrite,  they  mould 
the  wearer  to  their  own  identity.  But  for  all  that 
— gyves! 

Let  us  glance  for  a  moment  or  so  now,  in  the  most 
tentative  fashion,  at  some  of  the  data  for  this  inquiry, 
and  then  revert  from  this  excursion  into  general 
theory  to  our  more  immediate  business,  to  the  manner 
in  which  our  civilized  community  at  present  effects 
the  emotional  initiation  of  youth. 

The  intellectual  trouble  in  the  matter,  as  it  presents 
itself  to  me,  comes  in  upon  this,  that  the  question 
does  not  lie  in  one  plane.  So  many  discussions 
ignore  this  fact,  and  deal  with  it  on  one  plane  only. 
For  example,  we  may  take  the  whole  business  on  the 


The  Cultivation  of  the  Imagination     277 

plane  of  the  medical  man,  ignoring  all  other  con- 
siderations.    On   that   plane  it    would   probably   be 
almost   easy  to   reason   out  a   working   system.    It 
never  has  been  done  by  the  medical  profession,  as 
a  whole,  which  is  fairly  understandable,  or  by  any 
group  of  medical  men,  which  is  the  more  surprising, 
but  it  would  be  an  extremely  interesting  thing  to 
have  done  and  a  material  contribution  to  the  sane 
discussion  of  this  problem.    It  would  not  solve  it  but 
it  would   illuminate  certain  aspects.    Let   the  mere 
physiological  problem  be  taken.     We  want  healthy 
children  and  the  best  we  can  get.     Let  the  medical 
man  devise  his  scheme  primarily  for  that.     Under- 
stand   we    are    shutting    our    eyes    to    every    other 
consideration    but    physical    or   quasi-physical  ones. 
Imagine   the   thing   done,    for   example,   by   a    Mr. 
Francis  Galton,  who  had  an  absolutely  open  mind 
upon  all  other  questions.     Some  form  of  polygamy, 
marriage  of  the  most  transient  description,  with  re- 
production barred  to  specified  types,  would  probably 
come  from  such  a  speculation.     But,  in  addition,  a 
number  of  people  who  can  have  only  a  few  children 
or  none  are,  nevertheless,  not  adapted  physiologically 
for   celibacy.     Conceive   the   medical   man   working 
that  problem  out  upon  purely  materialistic  lines  and 
with  an  eye   to   all  physiological   and   pathological 
peculiarities.    The  Tasmanians  (now  extinct)   seem 
to  have  been  somewhere  near  the  probable  result. 

Then  let  us  take  one  step  up  to  a  second  stage 
of  consideration,  remaining  still  materialistic,  and  with 


278  Mankind  in  the  Making 

the  medical  man  still  as  our  only  guide.  We  want 
the  children  to  grow  up  healthy;  we  want  them  to 
be  taken  care  of.  This  means  homes,  homes  of  some 
sort.  That  may  not  abolish  polygamy,  but  it  will 
qualify  it,  it  will  certainly  abolish  any  approach  to 
promiscuity  that  was  possible  at  the  lowest  stage,  it 
will  enhance  the  importance  of  motherhood  and 
impose  a  number  of  limits  upon  the  sexual  freedoms 
of  men  and  women.  People  who  have  become  parents, 
at  any  rate,  must  be  tied  to  the  children  and  one 
another.  We  come  at  once  to  much  more  definite 
marriage,  to  an  organized  family  of  some  sort,  be  it 
only  Plato's  state  community  or  something  after 
the  Oneida  pattern,  but  with  at  least  a  system  of 
guarantees  and  responsibilities.  .  .  .  Let  us  add  that 
we  want  the  children  to  go  through  a  serious  educa- 
tional process,  and  we  find  at  once  still  further  limita- 
tions coming  in.  We  discover  the  necessity  of  de- 
ferring experience,  of  pushing  back  adolescence,  of 
avoiding  precocious  stimulation  with  its  consequent 
arrest  of  growth.  We  are  already  face  to  face  with 
an  enlarged  case  for  decency,  for  a  system  of  sup- 
pressions and  of  complicated  Taboos. 

Directly  we  let  our  thoughts  pass  out  of  this 
physical  plane  and  rise  so  high  as  to  consider  the 
concurrent  emotions — and  I  suppose  to  a  large 
number  of  people  these  are  at  least  as  important  as 
the  physical  aspects — we  come  to  pride,  we  come  to 
preference  and  jealousy,  and  so  soon  as  we  bring 
these  to  bear  upon  our  physical  scheme,  crumpling 


The  Cultivation  of  the  Imagination     279 

and  fissures  begin.  The  complications  have  multi- 
pHed  enormously.  More  especially  that  little  trouble 
of  preferences.  These  emotions  we  may  educate 
indeed,  but  not  altogether.  Neither  pride  nor  pref- 
erence nor  jealousy  are  to  be  tampered  with  lightly. 
We  are  making  men,  we  are  not  planning  a  society 
of  regulated  slaves;  we  want  fine  upstanding  person- 
alities, and  we  shall  not  get  them  if  we  break  them 
down  to  obedience  in  this  particular — for  the  cardinal 
expression  of  freedom  in  the  human  life  is  surely  this 
choice  of  a  mate.  There  is  indeed  no  freedom 
without  this  freedom.  Our  men  and  women  in  the 
future  must  feel  free  and  responsible.  It  seems 
almost  instinctive,  at  least  in  the  youth  of  the  white 
races,  to  exercise  this  power  of  choice,  not  simply 
rebelling  when  opposition  is  offered  to  it,  but  wanting 
to  rebel;  it  is  a  socially  good  thing,  and  a  thing  we 
are  justified  in  protecting  if  the  odds  are  against  it, 
this  passion  for  making  the  business  one's  very  own 
private  affair.  Our  citizens  must  not  be  caught  and 
paired;  it  will  never  work  like  that.  But  in  all 
social  contrivances  we  must  see  to  it  that  the  free- 
doms we  give  are  real  freedoms.  Our  youths  and 
maidens  as  they  grow  up  out  of  the  protection  of 
our  first  taboos,  grow  into  a  world  very  largely  in  the 
hands  of  older  people;  strong  men  and  experienced 
women  are  there  before  them,  and  we  are  justified  in 
any  effectual  contrivance  to  save  them  from  being 
"gobbled  up" — against  their  real  instincts.  That 
works — the    reflective    man    will    discover — towards 


28o  Mankind  in  the  Making 

whittling  the  previous  polygamy  to  still  smaller 
proportions.  Here,  indeed,  our  present  arrangements 
fail  most  lamentably;  each  year  sees  a  hideous 
sacrifice  of  girls,  mentally  scarcely  more  than  chil- 
dren— to  our  delicacy  in  discussion.  We  give 
freedom,  and  we  do  not  give  adequate  knowledge, 
and  we  punish  inexorably.  There  are  a  multitude 
of  women,  and  not  a  few  men,  with  lives  hopelessly 
damaged  by  this  blindfold  freedom.  So  many  poor 
girls,  so  many  lads  also,  do  not  get  a  fair  chance 
against  the  adult  world.  Things  mend  indeed  in  this 
respect;  as  one  sign  the  percentage  of  illegitimate 
births  in  England  has  almost  halved  in  fifty  years, 
but  it  is  clear  we  have  much  to  revise  before  this 
leakage  to  perdition  of  unlucky  creatures,  for  the 
most  part  girls  no  worse  on  the  average,  I  honestly 
believe — until  our  penalties  make  them  so — than 
other  women,  ceases.  If  our  age  of  moral  responsi- 
bility is  high  enough,  then  our  age  of  complete 
knowledge  is  too  high.  But  nevertheless,  things  are 
better  than  they  were,  and  promise  still  to  mend. 
All  round  we  raise  the  age,  the  average  age  at 
marriage  rises,  just  as,  I  believe,  the  average  age  at 
misconduct  has  risen.  We  may  not  be  approaching 
a  period  of  universal  morality,  but  we  do  seem  within 
sight  of  a  time  when  people  will  know  what  they  are 
doing.  .  .  . 

That,  however,  is  something  of  a  digression.  The 
intelligent  inquirer  who  has  squared  his  initially 
materialistic   system   of   morals   with    the    problems 


The  Cultivation  of  the  Imagination     281 

arising  out  of  the  necessity  of  sustaining  pride  and 
preference,  is  then  invited  to  explore  an  adjacent 
thicket  of  this  tortuous  subject.  It  is,  we  hold,  of 
supreme  importance  in  our  state  to  sustain  in  all  our 
citizens,  women  as  well  as  men,  a  sense  of  personal 
independence  and  responsibility.  Particularly  is  this 
the  case  with  mothers.  An  ilHterate  mother  means 
a  backward  child,  a  downtrodden  mother  bears  a 
dishonest  man,  an  unwilling  mother  may  even  hate 
her  children.  Slaves  and  brutes  are  the  sexes  where 
women  are  slaves.  The  line  of  thought  we  are 
following  out  in  these  papers  necessarily  attaches 
distinctive  importance  to  the  woman  as  mother. 
Our  system  of  morals,  therefore,  has  to  make  it 
worth  while  and  honourable  to  be  a  mother;  it  is 
particularly  undesirable  that  it  should  be  held  to 
be  right  for  a  woman  of  exceptional  charm  or 
exceptional  cleverness  to  evade  motherhood,  unless, 
perhaps,  to  become  a  teacher.  A  woman  evading  her 
high  calling,  must  not  be  conceded  the  same 
claim  upon  men's  toil  and  service  as  the  mother- 
woman;  more  particularly  Lady  Greensleeves  must 
not  flaunt  it  over  the  housewife.  And  here  also 
comes  the  question  of  the  quality  of  jealousy,  whether 
being  wife  of  a  man  and  mother  of  his  children  does 
not  almost  necessarily  give  a  woman  a  feeling  of 
exclusive  possession  in  him,  and  whether,  therefore, 
if  we  are  earnest  in  our  determination  not  to  debase 
her,  our  last  shred  of  polygamy  does  not  vanish. 
From  first  to  last,  of  course,  it  has  been  assumed  that 


282  Mankind  in  the  Making 

a  prolific  polygamy  alone  can  be  intended,  for  long 
before  we  have  plumbed  the  bottom  of  the  human 
heart  we  shall  know  enough  to  imagine  what  the 
ugly  and  pointless  consequences  of  permitting  sterile 
polygamy  must  be. 

Then  into  all  this  tangle,  whether  as  a  Hght  or  an 
added  confusion  it  is  hard  to  say,  comes  the  fact  that 
while  we  are  ever  apt  to  talk  of  what  "a  woman" 
feels  and  what  "a  man"  will  do,  and  so  contrive  our 
code,  there  is,  indeed,  no  such  woman  and  no  such 
man,  but  a  vast  variety  of  temperaments  and  disposi- 
tions, monadic,  dyadic,  and  polymeric  souls,  and 
this  sort  of  heart  and  brain  and  that.  It  is  only  the 
young  fool  and  the  brooding  mattoid  who  believe  in 
a  special  separate  science  of  "women,"  there  are  all 
sorts  of  people,  and  some  of  each  sort  are  women  and 
some  are  men.  With  every  stage  in  educational 
development  people  become  more  varied,  or,  at  least, 
more  conscious  of  their  variety,  more  sensitively 
insistent  upon  the  claim  of  their  individualities  over 
any  general  rules.  Among  the  peasants  of  a  country- 
side one  may  hope  to  order  homogeneous  lives,  but 
not  among  the  people  of  the  coming  state.  It  is  well 
to  sustain  a  home,  it  is  noble  to  be  a  good  mother, 
and  splendid  to  bear  children  well  and  train  them 
well,  but  we  shall  get  no  valid  rules  until  we  see 
clearly  that  life  has  other  ways  by  which  the  future 
may  be  served.  There  are  laws  to  be  made  and 
altered,  there  are  roads  and  bridges  to  be  built, 
figuratively  and  really;  there  is  not  only  a  succession 


The  Cultivation  of  the  Imagination    283 

of  flesh  and  blood  but  of  thought  that  is  going  on  for 
ever.  To  write  a  fruitful  book  or  improve  a  widely 
used  machine  is  just  as  much  paternity  as  begetting 
a  son.  .  .  . 

The  last  temporary  raft  of  a  logical  moral  code 
goes  to  pieces  at  this,  and  its  separated  spars  float 
here  and  there.  So  I  will  confess  they  float  at  present 
in  my  mind.  I  have  no  System — I  wish  I  had — and 
I  never  encountered  a  system  or  any  universal  doc- 
trine of  sexual  conduct  that  did  not  seem  to  me  to  be 
reached  by  clinging  tight  to  one  or  two  of  these  dis- 
severed spars  and  letting  the  rest  drift  disregarded, 
making  a  law  for  A,  B,  and  C,  and  pretending  that 
E  and  F  are  out  of  the  question.  That  motherhood 
is  a  great  and  noble  occupation  for  a  good  woman, 
and  not  to  be  lightly  undertaken,  is  a  manifest  thing, 
and  so  also  that  to  beget  children  and  see  them  full 
grown  in  the  world  is  the  common  triumph  of  Hfe,  as 
inconsequence  is  its  common  failure.  That  to  live 
for  pleasure  is  not  only  wickedness  but  folly,  seems 
easy  to  admit,  and  equally  foolish,  as  Saint  Paul  has 
intimated,  must  it  be  to  waste  a  life  of  nervous 
energy  in  fighting  down  beyond  a  natural  minimum 
our  natural  desires.  That  we  must  pitch  our  lives 
just  as  much  as  we  can  in  the  heroic  key,  and  hem 
and  control  mere  lasciviousness  as  it  were  a  sort  of 
leprosy  of  the  soul,  seems  fairly  certain.  And  all  that 
love-making  which  involves  lies,  all  sham  heroics 
and  shining  snares,  assuredly  must  go  out  of  a  higher 
order  of  social  being,  for  here  more  than  anywhere 


284  Mankind  in  the  Making 

lying  is  the  poison  of  life.  But  between  these  data 
there  are  great  interrogative  blanks  no  generalization 
will  fill — cases,  situations,  temperaments.  Each  life, 
it  seems  to  me,  in  that  intelligent,  conscious,  social 
state  to  which  the  world  is  coming,  must  square 
itself  to  these  things  in  its  own  way,  and  fill  in 
the  details  of  its  individual  moral  code  according 
to  its  needs.  So  it  seems,  at  least,  to  one  limited 
thinker. 

To  be  frank,  upon  that  common  ground  of  decent 
behaviour,  pride  and  self-respect,  health  and  the 
heroic  habit  of  thinking,  we  need  for  ourselves  not  so 
much  rules  as  wisdom,  and  for  others  not,  indeed,  a 
foolish  and  indiscriminate  toleration  but  at  least 
patience,  arrests  of  judgment,  and  the  honest  en- 
deavour to  understand.  Now  to  help  the  imagination 
in  these  judgments,  to  enlarge  and  interpret  experi- 
ence, is  most  certainly  one  of  the  functions  of  litera- 
ture. A  good  biography  may  give  facts  of  infinite 
suggestion,  and  the  great  multitude  of  novels  at 
present  are,  in  fact,  experiments  in  the  science  of  this 
central  field  of  human  action,  experiments  in  the  "way 
of  looking  at"  various  cases  and  situations.  They 
may  be  very  misleading  experiments,  it  is  true,  done 
with  adulterated  substances,  dangerous  chemicals, 
dirty  flasks  and  unsound  balances;  but  that  is  a  ques- 
tion of  their  quality  and  not  of  their  nature,  they  are 
experiments  for  all  that.  A  good  novel  may  become  a 
very  potent  and  convincing  experiment  indeed. 
Books  in  these  matters  are  often  so  much  quieter  and 


The  Cultivation  of  the  Imagination     285 

cooler  as  counsellers  than  friends.  .  .  .  And  there,  in 
truth,  is  my  whole  mind  in  this  matter. 

Meanwhile,  as  we  work  each  one  to  solve  his  own 
problems,  the  young  people  are  growing  up  about  us. 

§  11 

How  do  the   young  people  arrive  at  knowledge 
and  at  their  interpretation  of  these  things?    Let  us  for 
a  few  moments  at  least,  put  pretence  and  claptrap 
aside,  and  recall  our  own  youth.     Let  us  recognize 
that   this   complex   initiation    is   always  a   very  shy 
and  secret  process,  beyond  the  range  of  parent  and 
guardian.     The    prying    type    of    schoolmaster    or 
schoolmistress  only  drives  the  thing  deeper,  and,  at 
the  worst,  blunders  with  a  hideous  suggestiveness.    It 
is  almost  an  instinct,  a  part  of  the  natural  modesty 
of  the  growing  young,  to  hide  all  that  is  fermenting  in 
the  mind  from  authoritative  older  people.     It  would 
not  be  difficult  to  find  a  biological  reason  for  that. 
The  growing  mind  advances  slowly,  intermittently, 
with  long  pauses  and  sudden  panics,  that  is  the  law 
of  its  progress;  it  feels  its  way  through  three  main 
agencies,  firstly,  observation,  secondly,  tentative,  con- 
fidential talk  with  unauthoritative  and  trusted  friends, 
and  thirdly,  books.    In  the  present  epoch  observation 
declines  relatively  to  books;  books  and  pictures,  these 
dumb  impersonal  initiators,  play  a  larger  and  a  larger 
part  in  this  great  awakening.    Perhaps  for  all  but  the 
children  of  the  urban  poor,  the  furtive  talk  also  de- 


286  Mankind  in  the  Making 

clines  and  is  delayed;  a  most  desirable  thing  in  a 
civilizing  process  that  finds  great  advantage  in  putting 
off  adolescence  and  prolonging  the  average  life. 

Now  the  furtive  talk  is  largely  beyond  our  control, 
only  by  improving  the  general  texture  of  our  com- 
munal life  can  we  effectually  improve  the  quality  of 
that.  But  we  may  bear  in  mind  that  factor  of  obser- 
vation, and  give  it  a  casting  vote  in  any  decision 
upon  public  decency.  That  is  all  too  often  forgotten. 
Before  Broadbeam,  the  popular  humorist,  for  ex- 
ample, flashes  his  glittering  rapier  upon  the  County 
Council  for  suppressing  some  vulgar  obscenity  in  the 
music-halls,  or  tickles  the  ribs  of  a  Vigilance  Associa- 
tion for  its  care  of  our  hoardings,  he  should  do  his  best 
to  imagine  the  mental  process  of  some  nice  boy  or 
girl  he  knows,  "taking  it  in."  To  come  outright  to 
the  essential  matter  of  this  paper,  we  are  all  too  care- 
less of  the  quality  of  the  stuff  that  reaches  the  eyes  and 
ears  of  our  children.  It  is  not  that  the  stuff  is 
knowledge,  but  that  it  is  knowledge  in  the  basest  and 
vulgarest  colourings,  knowledge  without  the  antisep- 
tic quality  of  heroic  interpretation,  debased,  sugges- 
tive, diseased  and  contagious  knowledge. 

How  the  sexual  consciousness  of  a  great  proportion 
of  our  young  people  is  being  awakened,  the  curious 
reader  may  see  for  himself  if  he  will  expend  a  few 
pennies  weekly  for  a  month  or  so  upon  the  halfpenny 
or  penny  "comic"  papers  which  are  bought  so  eagerly 
by  boys.  They  begin  upon  the  facts  of  sex  as  affairs 
of   nodding   and    winking,    of   artful    innuendo    and 


The  Cultivation  of  the  Imagination     287 

scuffles  in  the  dark.  The  earnest  efforts  of  Broad- 
beam's  minor  kindred  to  knock  the  nonsense  out  of 
even  younger  people  may  be  heard  at  almost  any 
pantomime.  The  Lord  Chamberlain's  attempts  to 
stem  the  tide  amaze  the  English  Judges.  .  .  .  No 
scheme  for  making  the  best  of  human  lives  can  ignore 
this  system  of  influences. 

What  could  be  done  in  a  sanely  ordered  state  to 
suppress  this  sort  of  thing? 

There  immediately  arises  the  question  whether  we 
are  to  limit  art  and  literature  to  the  sphere  permis- 
sible to  the  growing  youth  and  "young  person."  So 
far  as  shop  windows,  bookstalls,  and  hoardings  go, 
so  far  as  all  general  publicity  goes,  I  would  submit  the 
answer  is  Yes.  I  am  on  the  side  of  the  Puritans  here, 
unhesitatingly.  But  our  adults  must  not  walk  in  men- 
tal leading  strings,  and  were  this  world  an  adult 
world  I  doubt  if  there  is  anything  I  would  not  regard 
as  fit  to  print  and  publish.  .  .  .  But  cannot  we  con- 
trive that  our  adult  literature  shall  be  as  free  as  air 
while  the  literature  and  art  of  the  young  is  sanely 
expurgated  ? 

There  is  in  this  matter  a  conceivable  way,  and  as  it 
is  the  principal  business  of  these  papers  to  point  out 
and  discuss  such  ways,  it  may  be  given  here.  It  will 
be  put,  as  for  the  sake  of  compact  suggestion  so  much 
of  these  papers  is  put,  in  the  form  of  a  concrete  sug- 
gestion, a  sample  suggestion  as  it  w^ere.  This  way, 
then,  is  to  make  a  definition  of  what  is  undesirable 
matter  for  the  minds  of  young  people,  and  to  make 


288  Mankind  in  the  Making 

that  cover  as  much  suggestive  mdecency  and  coarse- 
ness as  possible,  to  cover  everything,  indeed,  that  is 
not  z'irginibiis  puerisque,  and  to  call  this  matter  by 
some  reasonably  inoffensive  adjective,  "adult,"  for 
example.  One  might  speak  of  "adult"  art,  "adult" 
literature,  and  "adult"  science,  and  the  report  of  all 
proceedings  under  certain  specified  laws  could  be  de- 
clared "adult"  matter.  In  the  old  times  there  was  an 
excellent  system  of  putting  "adult"  matter  into  Latin, 
and  for  many  reasons  one  regrets  that  Latin.  But 
there  is  a  rough  practical  equivalent  to  putting  "adult" 
matter  into  Latin  even  now.  It  depends  upon  the  fact 
that  very  few  young  people  of  the  age  we  wish  to  pro- 
tect, unless  they  are  the  children  of  the  imbecile  rich, 
have  the  spending  of  large  sums  of  money.  Conse- 
quently, it  is  only  necessary  to  state  a  high  minimum 
price  for  periodicals  and  books  containing  "adult" 
matter  or  "adult"  illustrations,  and  to  prosecute  every- 
thing below  that  limit,  in  order  to  shut  the  flood-gates 
upon  any  torrent  of  over-stimulating  and  debasing 
suggestions  there  may  be  flowing  now.  It  should  be 
more  clearly  recognized  in  our  prosecutions  for  ob- 
scenity, for  example,  that  the  gravity  of  the  offence  is 
entirely  dependent  upon  the  accessibility  of  the  offen- 
sive matter  to  the  young.  The  application  of  the  same 
method  to  the  music-hall,  the  lecture-theatre,  and  the 
shelves  of  the  public  library,  and  to  several  other 
sources  of  suggestion  would  not  be  impossible.  If 
the  manager  of  a  theatre  saw  fit  to  produce  "adult" 
matter  without   excluding  people  under  the   age   of 


The  Cultivation  of  the  Imagination     289 

eighteen,  let  us  say,  he  would  have  to  take  his  chance, 
and  it  would  be  a  good  one,  of  a  prosecution.  This 
latter  expedient  is  less  novel  than  the  former,  and  it 
finds  a  sort  of  precedent  in  the  legislative  restriction 
of  the  sale  of  drink  to  children  and  the  protection  of 
children's  morals  under  specific  unfavourable  circum- 
stances. 

There  is  already  a  pretty  lively  sense  in  our  Eng- 
lish-speaking communities  of  the  particular  respect 
due  to  the  young,  and  it  is  probable  that  those  who 
publish  these  suggestive  and  stimulating  prints  do  not 
fully  realize  the  new  fact  in  our  social  body,  that  the 
whole  mass  of  the  young  now  not  only  read  but  buy 
reading  matter.  The  last  thirty  or  forty  years  have 
established  absolutely  new  relations  for  our  children 
in  this  direction.  Legislation  against  free  art  and  free 
writing  is,  and  one  hopes  always  will  be,  intensely  re- 
pugnant to  our  peoples.  But  legislation  which  laid 
stress  not  on  the  indecorum  but  on  the  accessibility  to 
the  young,  which  hammered  with  every  clause  upon 
that  note,  is  an  altogether  different  matter.  We  want 
to  make  the  pantomime  writer,  the  proprietor  of  the 
penny  "comic,"  the  billsticker,  and  the  music-hall 
artist  extemely  careful,  punctiliously  clean,  but  we  do 
not  want,  for  example,  to  pester  Mr.  Thomas  Hardy. 

Yet  there  is  danger  in  all  this.  The  suppression  of 
premature  and  base  suggestions  must  not  overleap  it- 
self and  suppress  either  mature  thought  (which  has 
been  given  its  hemlock  not  once  but  many  times  on 
this  particular  pretext)  or  the  destruction  of  necessary 


290  Mankind  in  the  Making 

common  knowledge.  If  we  begin  to  hunt  for  sugges- 
tion and  indecency  it  may  be  urged  we  shall  end  by 
driving  all  these  things  underground.  Youth  comes 
to  adult  life  now  between  two  dangers,  vice,  which 
has  always  threatened  it,  and  morbid  virtue,  which 
would  turn  the  very  heart  of  life  to  ugliness  and 
shame.  How  are  we,  or  to  come  closer  to  the  point, 
how  is  the  average  juryman  going  to  distinguish  be- 
tween these  three  things ;  between  advisable  knowl- 
edge and  corruptingly  presented  knowledge,  and  un- 
necessary and  undesirable  knowledge?  In  practice, 
under  the  laws  I  have  sketched,  it  is  quite  probable 
the  evil  would  flourish  extremely,  and  necessary  infor- 
mation would  be  ruthlessly  suppressed.  IMany  of  our 
present  laws  and  provisions  for  public  decency  do 
work  in  that  manner.  The  errand-boy  may  not  look 
at  the  Venus  de  Medici,  but  he  can  cram  his  mind 
with  the  lore  of  how  "nobs"  run  after  ballet  girls,  and 
why  Lady  X  locked  the  door.  .  .  .  One  can  only 
plead  here,  as  everywhere,  no  law,  no  succinct  state- 
ment can  save  us  without  wisdom,  a  growing  general 
wisdom  and  conscience,  coming  into  the  detailed  ad- 
ministration of  whatever  law  the  general  purpose  has 
made. 

Beside  our  project  for  law  and  the  state,  it  is  evi- 
dent there  is  scope  for  the  individual.  Certain  people 
are  in  a  position  of  exceptional  responsibility.  The 
Newsagents,  for  example,  constitute  a  fairly  strong 
trade  organization,  and  it  would  be  easy  for  them  to 
think  of  the  boy  with  a  penny  just  a  little  more  than 


The  Cultivation  of  the  Imagination     291 

they  do.  Unfortunately  such  instances  as  we  have 
had  of  voluntary  censorship  will  qualify  the  reader's 
assent  to  this  proposition.  Another  objection  may  be 
urged  to  this  distinction  between  "adult"  and  general 
matter,  and  that  is  the  possibility  that  what  is  marked 
off  and  forbidden  becomes  mysterious  and  attractive. 
One  has  to  reckon  with  that.  Everywhere  in  this 
field  one  must  go  wisely  or  fail.  But  what  is  here 
proposed  is  not  so  much  the  suppression  of  informa- 
tion as  of  a  certain  manner  of  presenting  information, 
and  our  intention  is  at  the  most  delay,  and  to  give  the 
wholesome  aspect  first. 

Let  us  leave  nothing  doubtful  upon  one  point ;  the 
suppression  of  stimulus  must  not  mean  the  suppres- 
sion of  knowledge.  There  are  things  that  young 
people  should  know,  and  know  fully  before  they  are 
involved  in  the  central  drama  of  life,  in  the  serious 
business  of  love.  There  should  be  no  horrifying  sur- 
prises. Sane,  clear,  matter-of-fact  books  setting  forth 
the  broad  facts  of  health  and  life,  the  existence  of  cer- 
tain dangers,  should  come  their  way.  In  this  matter 
books,  I  would  insist,  have  a  supreme  value.  The 
printed  word  may  be  such  a  quiet  counsellor.  It  is  so 
impersonal.  It  can  have  no  conceivable  personal  re- 
action with  the  reader.  It  does  not  watch  its  reader's 
face,  it  is  itself  unobtrusively  unabashed  and  safer 
than  any  priest.  The  power  of  the  book,  the  possible 
function  of  the  book  in  the  modern  state  is  still  but 
imperfectly  understood.  It  need  not  be,  it  ought  not, 
I  think,  to  be,  a  book  specifically  on  what  one  calls 


292  Mankind  in  the  Making 

delicate  questions,  that  would  be  throwing  them  up  in 
just  the  way  one  does  not  want  them  thrown  up;  it 
should  be  a  sort  of  rationalized  and  not  too  technical 
handbook  of  physiological  instruction  in  the  College 
Library — or  at  home.  Naturally,  it  would  begin  with 
muscular  physiology,  with  digestion,  and  so  on. 
Other  matters  would  come  in  their  due  place  and  pro- 
portion. From  first  to  last  it  would  have  all  that  need 
be  known.  There  is  a  natural  and  right  curiosity  on 
these  matters,  until  we  chase  it  underground.  .  .  . 

Restriction  alone  is  not  half  this  business.  It  is  in- 
herent in  the  purpose  of  things  that  these  young 
people  should  awaken  sexually,  and  in  some  manner 
and  somewhere  that  awakening  must  come.  To  en- 
sure they  do  not  awaken  too  soon  or  in  a  fetid  atmos- 
phere among  ugly  surroundings  is  not  enough.  They 
cannot  awaken  in  a  void.  An  ignorance  kept  beyond 
nature  may  corrupt  into  ugly  secrecies,  into  morose 
and  sinister  seclusions,  worse  than  the  evils  we  have 
suppressed.  Let  them  awaken  as  their  day  comes,  in 
a  sweet,  large  room.  The  true  antiseptic  of  the  soul 
is  not  ignorance,  but  a  touch  of  the  heroic  in  the  heart 
and  in  the  imagination.  Pride  has  saved  more  men 
than  piety,  and  even  misconduct  loses  something  of 
its  evil  if  it  is  conceived  upon  generous  lines.  There 
lurks  a  capacity  for  heroic  response  in  all  youth,  even 
in  contaminated  youth.  Before  five-and-twenty,  at 
any  rate,  we  were  all  sentimentalists  at  heart.  .  .  . 

And  the  way  to  bring  out  these  responses? 

Assuredly  it  is  not  by  sermons  on  Purity  to  Men 


The  Cultivation  of  the  Imagination     293 

Only  and  by  nasty  little  pamphlets  of  pseudo-medical 
and  highly  alarming  information  stuffed  into  clean 
young  hands^ — ultra  "adult"  that  stuff  should  be — 
but  in  the  drum  and  trumpet  style  the  thing  should  be 
done.  There  is  a  mass  of  fine  literature  to-day 
wherein  love  shines  clean  and  noble.  There  is  art 
telling  fine  stories.  There  is  a  possibility  in  the 
Theatre.  Probably  the  average  of  the  theatre-goer  is 
under  rather  than  over  twenty-two.  Literature,  the 
drama,  art;  that  is  the  sort  of  food  upon  which  the 
young  imagination  grows  stout  and  tall.  There  is  the 
literature  and  art  of  youth  that  may  or  may  not  be 
part  of  the  greater  literature  of  life,  and  upon  this 
mainly  we  must  depend  when  our  children  pass  from 
us  into  these  privacies,  these  dreams  and  inquiries 
that  will  make  them  men  and  women.  See  the  right 
stuff  is  near  them  and  the  wrong  stuff  as  far  as  pos- 
sible away,  chase  cad  and  quack  together,  and  for  the 
rest,  in  this  matter — leave  them  alone. 

1  See  Clouston's  Mental  Diseases,  fifth  edition,  p.  535,  for  insanity 
caused  by  these  pamphlets;  see  also  p.  591  et  seq.  for  "adolescent" 
literature. 


IX 

The  Organization  of  the  Higher 
Education 

When  we  digressed  to  the  general  question  of  the 
poHtical,  social,  and  moral  atmosphere  in  which  the 
English-speaking  citizen  develops,  we  left  the  formal 
education  of  the  average  child,  whose  development 
threads  through  these  papers  and  holds  them  together, 
at  about  the  age  of  fifteen  and  at  the  end  of  the  proc- 
ess of  Schooling.  We  have  now  to  carry  on  that 
development  to  adult  citizenship.  It  is  integral  in  the 
New  Republican  idea  that  the  process  of  Schooling, 
which  is  the  common  atrium  to  all  public  service, 
should  be  fairly  uniform  throughout  the  social  body, 
that  although  the  average  upper-class  child  may  have 
all  the  advantages  his  conceivably  better  mental  in- 
heritance, his  better  home  conditions,  and  his  better 
paid  and  less  overworked  teackers  may  give  him, 
there  shall  be  no  disadvantages  imposed  upon  the  child 
of  any  class,  there  shall  be  no  burking  of  the  intellec- 
tual education  for  any  purpose  whatever.  To  keep 
poor  wretches  in  serfdom  on  the  land  by  depriving 
them  of  all  but  the  most  rudimentary  literary  educa- 
tion,   as    a    very    considerable   element    in    the    new 

294 


Organization  of  Higher  Education     295 

Nature  Study  Movement  certainly  intends,  is  alto- 
gether antagonistic  to  New  Republican  ideas,  and 
there  must  be  no  weeding  out  of  capable  and  high- 
minded  teachers  by  filtering  them  through  grotesque 
and  dishonouring  religious  tests — dishonouring  be- 
cause compulsory,  whatever  the  real  faith  of  the 
teacher  may  be.  And  at  the  end  of  the  Schooling 
period  there  must  begin  a  process  of  sorting  in  the 
mass  of  the  national  youth — as  far  as  possible,  re- 
gardless of  their  social  origins — that  will  go  on 
throughout  life.  For  the  competition  of  public  ser- 
vice must  constitute  the  Battle  for  Existence  in  the 
civilized  state.  All-round  inferiority  in  school  life — 
failure  not  simply  at  this  or  that  or  at  the  total  result 
(which,  indeed,  may  be  due  very  often  to  the  lopsided- 
ness  of  exceptional  gifts)  but  failure  all  along  the 
line — is  a  mark  of  essential  inferiority.  A  certain 
proportion  of  boys  and  girls  will  have  shown  this  in- 
feriority, will  have  done  little  with  any  of  their  chances 
in  or  out  of  school  during  their  school  life,  and  these — 
when  they  are  poorer-class  children — will  very  nat- 
urally drop  out  of  the  educational  process  at  this  stage 
and  pass  into  employment  suited  to  their  capacity, 
employment  which  should  not  carry  with  it  any  con- 
siderable possibility  of  prolific  marriage.  A  really 
well-contrived  leaving-school  examination — and  it 
must  be  remembered  that  the  theory  and  science  of 
examinations  scarcely  exists  as  yet — an  examination 
which  would  take  account  of  athletic  development  and 
moral  influence  (let  us  say  provisionally  by  the  vote  of 


296  Mankind  in  the  Making 

fellow-pupils)  and  which  would  be  so  contrived  as  to 
make  specially  high  quality  in  one  department  as  good 
as  all-round  worth — could  effect  this  first  classifica- 
tion. It  would  throw  out  the  worst  of  the  duffers  and 
fools  and  louts  all  along  the  social  scale.  What  is  to 
become  of  the  rejected  of  the  upper  and  wealthy  class 
is,  I  admit,  a  difficult  problem  as  things  are  to-day. 
At  present  they  carry  a  loutish  ingredient  to  the  pub- 
lic schools,  to  the  Army,  to  Oxford  and  Cambridge, 
and  it  is  open  to  question  whether  it  would  not  be  well 
to  set  aside  one  public  school,  one  especially  costly 
university,  and  one  gentlemen's  regiment  of  an  attract- 
ively smart  type,  into  which  this  mass  of  expensive 
slackness  might  be  drained  along  a  channel  of  spec- 
ially high  fees,  low  standards,  and  agreeable  social 
conditions.  That,  however,  is  a  quite  subsidiary 
question  in  this  discussion.  A  day  may  come,  as  I 
have  already  suggested,  when  it  will  be  considered  as 
reasonable  to  insist  upon  a  minimum  mental  qualifi- 
cation for  the  administration  of  property  as  for  any 
other  form  of  power  in  the  state.  Pride  and  their 
many  advantages — of  which  one  is  quite  conceivably 
an  average  essential  superiority — will  probably  en- 
sure a  satisfactory  result  from  the  Schooling  process 
in  the  case  of  a  much  greater  proportion  of  better- 
class  than  of  lower-class  boys  and  girls. ^ 

From  the  mass  who  show  a  satisfactory  result  at  the 

» In  most  big  public  schools,  I  am  told,  there  is  a  system  of  superan- 
nuation about  sixteen,  but  I  know  nothing  of  the  provision  for  those 
who  are  weeded  out. 


Organization  of  Higher  Edticatioti     297 

end  of  the  Schooling  process,  the  functional  manhood 
and  womanhood  of  our  peoples  have  to  be  developed, 
and  we  have  now  to  discuss  the  nature  of  the  second 
phase  of  education,  the  phase  that  should  be  the 
mental  parallel  and  accompaniment  of  physical 
adolescence  in  all  the  citizens  who  are  to  count  for 
strength  in  the  state.  There  is  a  break  in  the  whole 
development  of  the  human  being  at  this  age,  and  it 
may  very  well  be  paralleled  by  a  break  in  methods  and 
subjects  of  instruction.  In  Great  Britain,  in  the  case 
of  the  wealthier  classes,  schooling  and  puerile  dis- 
cipline is  prolonged  alk)gether  too  far,  largely  through 
the  gross  incapacity  of  our  secondary  teachers. 
These  men  are  unable,  boring  away  day  after  day, 
week  after  week,  year  after  year,  with  vain  repetitions, 
imbecile  breaks  and  new  beginnings,  through  all  the 
vast  period  from  eleven  or  twelve  until  twenty,  to 
achieve  that  mastery  of  Latin  and  Greek  which  was 
once  the  necessary  preliminary  to  education,  and 
which  has  become  at  last,  through  the  secular  decline 
in  scholastic  energy  and  capacity  due  to  the  with- 
drawal of  interest  in  these  studies,  the  unattainable 
educational  ideal.  These  classical  pedagogues,  how- 
ever, carry  the  thing  up  to  three  or  four  and  twenty 
in  the  Universities — though  it  is  inconceivable  that 
any  language  spoken  since  the  antediluvian  age  of 
leisure,  can  need  more  than  ten  years  to  learn — and  if 
they  could  keep  the  men  until  forty  or  fifty  they  would 
still  be  fumbling  away  at  the  keys  to  the  room  that 
was  ransacked  long  ago.     But  with  educated  men  as 


298  Mankind  in  the  Making 

teachers  and  practical  handbooks  to  help,  and  practi- 
cal examiners  to  guide  them,  there  is  no  reason  what- 
ever why  the  great  mass  of  the  linguistic  training  of 
the  citizen,  in  the  use  of  his  own  and  any  other  neces- 
sary language,  should  not  be  done  for  good  and  all  by 
fourteen,  why  he  should  not  have  a  fairly  complete 
mastery  of  form  and  quantity  through  mathematical 
training  and  drawing,  and  why  the  way  should  not  be 
clear  and  immediate  for  the  development  of  that  adult 
mental  edifice  of  which  this  is  the  foundation. 

By  fourteen  the  power  of  abstract  reasoning  and  of 
an  analytical  treatment  of  things  is  in  existence,  the 
learner  is  now  less  to  be  moulded  and  more  to  be 
guided  than  he  was.  We  want  now  to  give  this  mind 
we  have  established,  the  most  stimulating  and  invigor- 
ating training  we  can,  we  want  to  give  it  a  sane  co- 
herent view  of  our  knowledge  of  the  universe  in  rela- 
tion to  itself,  and  we  want  to  equip  it  for  its  own 
special  work  in  the  world.  How,  on  the  basis  of  the 
Schooling  we  have  predicated,  are  these  ends  to  be 
attained? 

Now  let  us  first  have  it  perfectly  clear  that  this 
second  stage  in  development  lies  no  more  completely 
within  the  idea  of  College  than  the  former  lay  com- 
pletely within  the  idea  of  School.  In  the  general  dis- 
cussion of  these  things  we  are  constantly  faced  by  the 
parallel  error  to  that  w-e  have  tried  to  dissipate  in  re- 
gard to  schools,  the  error  that  the  Professor  and  his 
Lecture  and  (in  the  case  of  experimental  sciences) 
his  Laboratory  make,  or  can  make,  the  man,  just  pre- 


Organization  of  Higher  Education     299 

cisely  in  the  same  way  that  the  Schoolmaster  or 
Schoolmistress  is  supposed  to  be  omnipotent  in  the 
education  of  the  boy  or  girl.  And,  unhappily,  the 
Professor,  unless  he  is  a  man  of  quite  exceptional 
mental  power  for  a  Professor,  shares  this  groundless 
opinion.  The  Schoolmaster  is  under-educated  in  re- 
gard to  his  work,  and  incapable  of  doing  it  neatly ;  the 
Professor  is  too  often  over-specialized  and  incapable 
of  forming  an  intelligent,  modest  idea  of  his  place  in 
education ;  and  the  same  consequence  flows  from  the 
defect  of  either,  an  attempt  to  use  an  improperly  large 
portion  of  the  learner's  time  and  energy.  Over- 
direction,  and  what  one  may  call  intellectual  secta- 
rianism, are  faults  from  which  few  College  courses  are 
free  to-day.  The  Professor  stands  between  his 
students  and  books,  he  says  in  lectures  in  his  own  way 
what  had  far  better  be  left  for  other  men's  books  to 
tell,  he  teaches  his  beliefs  without  a  court  of  appeal. 
Students  are  kept  writing  up  their  notes  of  his  not 
very  brilliant  impromptus,  and  familiarizing  them- 
selves with  his  mental  constitution  instead  of  the  sub- 
ject of  study.  They  get  no  training  in  the  use  of 
books  as  sources  of  knowledge  and  ideas,  albeit  such 
a  training  is  one  of  the  most  necessary  of  all  acquisi- 
tions for  an  efficient  citizen,  and  whatever  discussion 
the  modern  student  indulges  in  is  all  too  often  treated 
rather  as  presumption  to  be  discouraged  than  as  the 
most  necessary  and  hopeful  of  mental  processes.  Our 
Universities  and  Colleges  are  still  but  imperfectly 
aware  of  the  recent  invention  of  the  Printed  Book; 


300  Mankind  in  the  Making 

and  its  intelligent  use  in  this  stage  of  education  has 
made  little  or  no  headway  against  their  venerable  tra- 
ditions. That  things  are  only  understood  by  being 
turned  over  in  the  mind  and  looked  at  from  various 
points  of  view  is,  of  course,  altogether  too  modern  a 
conception  for  our  educationists.  At  the  London 
Royal  College  of  Science,  for  example,  which  is  an 
exceptionally  new  and  efficient  College,  there  is  no 
properly  organized  escape  from  the  orthodoxy  of  the 
lecture-theatre,  no  circulating  library  whatever  avail- 
able to  the  students,  no  library,  that  is,  which  will 
ensure  a  copious  supply  and  exchange  of  the  best 
books  on  each  subject,  and,  consequently,  even  to  look 
up  an  original  paper  that  has  been  quoted  or  discussed, 
involves  an  expenditure  of  time  that  is  practically 
prohibitive  of  the  thing  as  a  general  practice.^  The 
Professors,  being  busy  and  important  men,  lecture 
from  their  particular  standpoints,  and  having  lectured, 
bolt ;  there  is  no  provision  whatever  for  the  intelligent 
discussion  of  knotty  points,  and  the  only  way  to  get 

'  There  are  three  very  fine  libraries  in  the  adjacent  South  Kensington 
Museum,  especially  available  to  students,  but,  like  almost  all  existing 
libraries,  they  are  managed  in  most  respects  on  lines  cxanceived  when 
a  copy  of  a  book  was  an  almost  unique  thing  made  specially  by  the 
copyist's  hand.  However  much  a  book  is  in  demand,  however  cheap 
its  price  of  publication  may  be,  no  library  in  England,  unless  it  is  a 
modem  subscription  library,  ever  gets  duplicate  copies.  This  is  the 
cause  of  the  deamess  of  serious  books;  they  are  bought  as  rarities, 
and  have  to  be  sold  in  the  same  spirit.  But  when  libraries  learn  to  buy 
by  the  dozen  and  the  hundred,  there  is  no  reason  why  the  sort  of  book 
now  prublished  at  io5.  (A.  should  not  be  sold  at  a  shilling  from  the 
beginning. 


Orgafiization  of  Higher  Education    301 

it  is  to  buttonhole  a  demonstrator  and  induce  him  to 
neglect  his  task  of  supervising  prescribed  "practical" 
work  in  favour  of  educational  talk.  .  .  .  Let  us, 
therefore,  in  view  of  this  state  of  affairs,  deal  with  the 
general  question  how  a  branch  of  thought  and  knowl- 
edge may  be  most  beneficially  studied  under  modern 
conditions,  before  discussing  the  more  particular 
question  what  subjects  should  or  should  not  be  under- 
taken. 

Now  the  full  statement  not  only  of  what  is  known 
of  a  subject,  but  of  its  difficulties,  dark  places,  and 
conflicting  aspects  should  be  luminously  set  forth  in 
the  College  text-books,  large,  well-written,  well- 
illustrated  books  by  one  or  several  hands,  continually 
revised  and  kept  abreast  of  the  advance  of  knowledge 
by  capable  and  critical-minded  young  men.  Such 
books  are  essential  and  cardinal  in  proper  modern 
teaching.  The  country  may  be  speckled  with  univer- 
sities until  they  are  as  thick  as  public-houses,  and  each 
may  be  provided  with  its  score  or  so  of  little  lecturers, 
and  if  it  does  not  possess  one  or  more  good  general 
text-books  in  each  principal  subject  then  all  this  simply 
means  that  a  great  number  of  inadequate,  infertile 
little  text-books  are  being  dictated,  one  by  each  of 
these  lecturers.  Not  the  course  of  lectures,  but  the 
sound,  full  text-book  should  be  the  basis  of  College 
instruction,  and  this  should  be  supplemented  by  a 
greater  or  lesser  number  of  more  or  less  controversial 
pamphlets  or  books,  criticising,  expanding  or  correct- 
ing its  matter  or  putting  things  in  a  different  and 


302  Mankind  in  the  Making 

profitable  way.  This  text-book  should  be  paralleled 
in  the  case  of  experimental  science  by  a  hand-book  of 
illustrative  and  explanatory  laboratory  work.  Por- 
tions of  the  book  could  be  set  for  preparation  at  each 
stage  in  the  course  with  appropriate  experiments, 
students  could  submit  difficulties  in  writing  to  be  dealt 
with  by  the  Professor  in  conversational  lectures,  and 
the  reading  of  the  students  could  be  checked  by  peri- 
odic examinations  upon  cardinal  parts,  and  supple- 
mented, if  these  examinations  showed  it  to  be  neces- 
sary, by  dissertations  upon  special  issues  of  difficulty. 
Upon  the  matters  that  were  distinctively  his  "sub- 
ject," or  upon  his  points  of  disagreement  with  the 
general  issues  of  the  book,  the  Professor  might  lecture 
in  the  accepted  way.  This  is  surely  the  proper  method 
of  work  for  adolescent  students  in  any  subject,  in 
philology  just  as  much  as  in  comparative  anatomy, 
and  in  history  just  as  much  as  in  economics.  The 
cheapening  of  printing,  paper,  and,  above  all,  of  illus- 
tration has  done  away  with  the  last  excuse  for  the 
vocal  course  of  instruction  and  the  lecturer's  dia- 
grams. .  .  .  But  it  has  not  done  away  with  them. 

It  is  one  of  the  most  curious  of  human  phenomena, 
this  persistence  of  tradition  against  what  one  might 
have  imagined  the  most  destructive  facts,  and  in  no 
connection  is  this  aspect  more  remarkable  than  in  all 
that  concerns  the  higher  stages  of  education.  One 
might  think  that  somewhere  in  the  seventeenth  century 
it  would  have  been  recognized  at  the  Seats  of  Learn- 
ing  that   thought   and   knowledge   were   progressive 


Organization  of  Higher  Education    303 

things,  and  that  a  periodic  revision  of  courses  and 
syllabuses,  a  periodic  recasting  of  work  and  scope,  a 
re-arrangement  of  chairs  and  of  the  appliances  of  the 
faculties,  was  as  necessary  to  the  continued  healthy 
existence  of  a  University  as  periodic  meals  and  sleep 
and  exercise  are  necessary  to  a  man.  But  even  to- 
day we  are  founding  Universities  without  any  pro- 
vision for  this  necessary  change,  and  the  chances  are 
that  in  a  century  or  so  they  will  present  just  as  much 
backwardness  and  illiteracy  as  do  the  ordinary  grad- 
uation organizations  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge  to- 
day, that  a  hundred  years  from  now  the  past  graduates 
of  ripe  old  Birmingham,  full  of  spite  against  new- 
fangled things  "no  fellow  can  understand,"  will  be 
crowding  up  to  vote  against  the  substitution  of  some 
more  modern  subject  for  "Huxley" — "Huxley"  they 
will  call  the  subject,  and  not  Comparative  Anatomy, 
on  the  model  of  "Euclid" — or  for  the  retention  of  com- 
pulsory "Commercial  Geography  of  the  Nineteenth 
Century,"  or  "Longhand  Bookkeeping"  in  the  Little 
Go.  (And  should  any  germinating  noble  founder 
read  these  pages  I  would  implore  him  with  all  the 
earnestness  that  is  possible  in  printed  matter,  to  pro- 
vide that  every  fifty  years,  let  us  say,  the  whole  of  his 
prospective  foundation  shall  go  into  solution,  shall  re- 
apportion its  funds  and  reorganize  the  entire  mechan- 
ism of  its  work.) 

The  idea  that  a  text-book  should  be  regularly  reset 
and  reprinted  is  still  quite  foreign  to  the  Professorial 
mind,  as,  indeed,  is  the  idea  that  the  care  of  text-books 


304  Mankind  in  the  Making 

and  publications  is  a  University  function  at  all.  No 
one  is  startled  by  a  proposal  to  apply  £800  or  £1000  a 
year  to  a  new  chair  in  any  subject,  but  to  apply  that 
sum  yearly  as  a  standing  charge  to  the  revision  and 
perfection  of  a  specific  text-book  would  seem,  even  to- 
day, quite  fantastically  extravagant  to  most  Univer- 
sity men.  Yet  what  could  be  more  obviously  helpful 
to  sound  and  thorough  teaching  than  for  a  University, 
or  a  group  of  Universities,  to  sustain  a  Professor  in 
each  of  the  chief  subjects  of  instruction,  whose  bus- 
iness would  be  neither  teaching  as  it  is  now  under- 
stood, nor  research,  but  the  critical  and  exhaustive 
editing  of  the  College  text-book  of  his  subject,  a  text- 
book which  would  stand  in  type  at  the  University 
Press,  which  would  be  revised  annually  and  reprinted 
annually,  primarily  for  the  use  of  the  matriculated 
students  of  the  University  and  incidentally  for  publi- 
cation. His  business  would  be  not  only  to  bring  the 
work  up  to  date  ^nd  parallel  with  all  the  newest  pub- 
lished research  and  to  invite  and  consider  proposals 
of  contributions  and  footnotes  from  men  with  new 
views  and  new  matter,  but  also  to  substitute  for  ob- 
scure passages  fuller  and  more  lucid  expositions,  to 
cut  down  or  relegate  to  smaller  type  passages  of 
diminishing  importance  and  to  introduce  fresh  and 
more  efficient  illustrations,  and  his  work  would  be 
carried  on  in  consultation  with  the  General  Editor  of 
the  University  Press  who  would  also  be  a  specialist  in 
modern  printing  and  book-making,  and  who  would  be 
constantly  taking  up,  trying,  and  adopting  fresh  de- 


Organization  of  Higher  Education     305 

vices  of  arrangement,  and  newer,  better,  and  cheaper 
methods  of  printing  and  illustration.  It  would  not 
merely  raise  the  general  efficiency  of  the  College  work 
of  adolescents  very  greatly  to  have  this  series  of  text- 
books living  and  growing  in  each  subject  at  one  or 
(better)  at  several  Universities  or  grouped  Univer- 
sities, but  in  each  subject  the  periodic  change  in  these 
books  would  afford  a  most  valuable  corrective  to  the 
influence  of  specialized  work  by  keeping  the  specialist 
worker  easily  in  touch  with  the  current  presentation 
of  his  science  as  a  whole. 

The  text-book,  however  good,  and  the  lecturer, 
however  able,  are  only  one  of  two  necessary  factors  in 
College  work,  the  reciprocal  element  is  the  students' 
activity.  Unless  the  students  are  actively  engaged  not 
simply  in  taking  in  what  they  are  told,  but  in  re- 
arranging it,  turning  it  over,  trying  and  testing  it, 
they  are  doing  little  good.  We  recognize  this  quite 
abundantly  in  the  laboratory  nowadays,  but  we  neglect 
it  enormously  in  the  more  theoretical  study  of  a  sub- 
ject. The  facts  of  a  subject  if  it  is  a  science  may  be 
got  at  in  the  most  thorough  way  by  handling  in  the 
laboratory,  but  the  ideas  of  a  subject  must  be  handled 
in  discussion,  reproduction  and  dispute.  Examina- 
tions, examinations  by  teachers  who  understand  this 
very  fine  art,  in  which  the  student  is  obliged  to  restate, 
apply,  and  use  the  principles  of  his  subject,  are  of  the 
utmost  value  in  keeping  the  mind  active  and  not  simply 
receptive.  They  are  just  as  good  and  as  vitally  neces- 
sary  as   examination   papers   which   merely   demand 


3o6  Mankind  in  the  Making 

definitions  and  lists  and  bald  facts  are  bad.  And  then 
there  might  be  discussions — if  the  Professor  were 
clever  enough  to  conduct  them.  If  the  students  of  a 
class  could  be  induced  to  submit  propositions  for  dis- 
cussion, from  which  a  topic  could  be  selected,  and 
could  then  be  made  to  prepare  for  a  disputation  to 
which  all  would  have  to  contribute,  with  the  Professor 
as  a  controlling  influence  in  the  chair  to  check  facts 
and  logic  and  to  conclude,  it  would  have  the  value  of 
a  dozen  lectures.  But  Professors  who  are  under  the 
burthen  of  perhaps  ninety  or  a  hundred  lectures  a  year 
cannot  be  expected  to  do  anything  of  this  sort.  Di- 
rected reading,  conferences  on  knotty  points,  special 
lectures  followed  by  the  questioning  of  the  lecturer, 
discussions  upon  matters  of  opinion,  laboratory  work 
when  needful,  fairly  frequent  test  examinations,  and 
a  final  examination  for  places,  are  the  proper  ingre- 
dients of  a  good  modern  College  course,  and  in  the 
necessity  of  leaving  the  Professor's  energies  free  for 
the  direction  of  all  this  really  educational  work,  lies 
another  reason  for  that  complete,  explicit,  well- 
arranged  text-book  upon  which  I  am  insisting.  .  .  . 

Coming  back  now  from  these  general  propositions 
about  books  and  teaching  to  our  mass  of  young 
people  about  fifteen  years  old,  our  adolescent  nation, 
who  have  accomplished  their  Schooling  and  are  ready 
for  the  College  phase,  we  have  to  consider  what  sub- 
jects they  are  to  be  taught,  and  how  far  they  are  to  go 
with  these  subjects.  Whether  they  are  to  give  all  or 
part  of  their  time  to  these  College  studies,  whether 


Organization  of  Higher  Education    307 

they  are  going  to  pursue  them  in  evening  classes  or 
before  breakfast  in  the  morning  or  during  the  live- 
long day  is  a  question  of  secondary  conveniences  that 
may  very  well  be  disregarded  here.  We  are  concerned 
with  the  general  architecture  now,  and  not  with  the 
tactical  necessities  of  the  clerk  of  the  works.^ 

We  need  waste  little  time  nowadays,  I  submit,  in 
disposing  of  Encyclopaedic  conceptions  of  College 
Education,  conceptions  that  played  a  part  in  almost 
all  educational  schemes  —  Bentham's  stupendous 
Chrestomathia  is  the  fearful  example — before  the 
middle  nineteenth  century.  We  are  all  agreed  in 
theory,  at  any  rate,  that  to  know  one  subject  or  group 
of  subjects  exhaustively  is  far  better  than  a  universal 
smattering,  that  the  ideal  of  education  is  more  par- 
ticularly "all  about  something"  with  "something 
about  everything"  in  a  very  subordinate  place.  The 
fact  remains  that  the  normal  curriculum  of  our  higher 
schools  and  colleges  is  a  pointless  non-educational 
miscellany,  and  the  average  graduate  in  Arts  knows 
something,  but  not  enough,  of  science,  mathematics, 
Latin,  Greek,  literature,  and  history;  he  has  paid 
tribute  to  several  conflicting  schemes  of  education, 

'  But  I  may  perhaps  point  out  here  how  integral  to  a  sane  man- 
making  scheme  is  the  raising  of  the  minimum  age  at  which  children 
may  work.  A  day  will  come,  I  hope,  when  even  the  partial  employ- 
ment of  children  under  fifteen  will  be  prohibited,  and  when,  as  Mr. 
Sidney  Webb  suggested  some  time  ago,  employment  up  to  the  age  of 
twenty-one  will  be  limited  to  so  few  hours  a  week — his  suggestion  was 
thirty — as  to  leave  a  broad  margin  for  the  more  or  less  compulsory 
college  work  and  physical  training  that  are  becoming  essential  to  the 
modern  citizen. 


3o8  Mankind  in  the  Making 

and  is  a  credit  to  none.  We  have  to  get  rid  of  this 
state  of  affairs,  and  we  have  to  provide  (i)  a  sub- 
stantial mental  training  which  shall  lead  at  last  to  a 
broad  and  comprehensive  view  of  things,  and  which 
shall  be  a  training  in  generalization,  abstraction,  and 
the  examination  of  evidence,  stimulating  and  dis- 
ciplining the.  imagination  and  developing  the  habit 
of  patient,  sustained,  enterprising  and  thorough  work, 
and  (ii)  we  have  to  add  a  general  culture,  a  circle  of 
ideas  about  moral,  aesthetic,  and  social  matters  that 
shall  form  a  common  basis  for  the  social  and  intel- 
lectual life  of  the  community.  The  former  of  these 
two  elements  must  at  some  stage  develop — after  two 
or  five  or  seven  or  some  such  period  of  years,  which 
may  be  different  in  different  cases — into  the  special 
training  for  the  definite  function  of  the  individual 
in  the  social  body,  whether  as  engineer,  business 
manager,  doctor,  priest,  journalist,  public  adminis- 
trator, professional  soldier,  or  what  not.  And  before 
we  ask  what  must  constitute  (i)  it  may  be  well  to 
define  the  relation  between  the  first  and  the  second 
section  of  the  College  stage  of  education. 

It  is  (i)  that  will  constitute  the  essential  work  of 
the  College,  which  will  be  the  especial  concern  of  the 
Professorial  staff,  which  will  "count"  in  examina- 
tions, and  I  conceive  it  as  occupying  typically  four 
full  working  days  in  the  week,  four  good,  hard- 
driving  days,  and  no  more,  of  the  students'  time. 
The  remaining  three,  so  far  as  they  are  not  engaged 
by   physical    exercise,    military   training,   and    mere 


Organization  of  Higher  Education     309 

amusement,  must  be  given  to  (ii),  which  I  imagine 
an  altogether  more  general,  discursive,  various,  and 
spontaneous  series  of  activities.     To  put  the  thing 
briefly,  with  the  use  of  a  convenient  slang  word  (i),  is 
"grind,"  and   (ii)  is  general   culture,   elements   that 
are   altogether  too  greatly   confused   in   adolescent 
education.     A  large  number  of  people  will  consider 
it  right  and  proper  that  (ii)  on  the  seventh  day  of  the 
week  should  become  devotional  exercise  or  religious 
thought  and  discussion.    I  would  submit  that  under 
(ii)  there  should  be  formally  recognized  certain  ex- 
tremely valuable  educational  influences  that  are  at 
present  too  often  regarded  as  irregular  or  improper 
invasions  of  school  and  college  work,  the  collegiate 
debating  society,  for  example,  private  reading,  ex- 
perimental science  outside  the  curriculum,  and  essays 
in  various  arts.     It  should  be  possible  to  provide  a 
certain  definite  number  of  hours  weekly  in  which  the 
student  should  be  required  merely  to  show  that  he 
was  doing  something  of  a  developmental  kind,  he 
would  have  his  choice  between  the  Library — every 
College  ought  to  have  a  good  and  not  too  priggishly 
conceived  Library,  in  which  he  might  either  read  or 
write— or  the  music  master,  the  debating  society,  the 
museum,    the    art    studio,    the    dramatic    society,    or 
any  concern  of  the  sort  that  the  College  authorities 
had  satisfactory  reason  for  supposing  to  be  alive  and 
efficient.     In    addition    (ii)    should    include    certain 
minor  but  necessary  studies  not  included  in   (i),  but 
pursued  for  all  that  with  a  certain  insistence,  taught 


3IO  Mankind  in  the  Making 

or  directed,  and  controlled  perhaps  by  examinations. 
If,  for  example,  the  acquisition  of  a  foreign  language 
was  a  part  of  the  preliminary  schooling,  it  could  be 
kept  alive  by  a  more  fastidious  study  in  the  higher 
grade.  For  the  making  of  the  good,  all-round, 
average  citizen  (i)  will  be  the  essential  educational 
factor,  but  for  the  boy  or  girl  with  a  dash  of  genius 
(ii)  will  rise  from  the  level  of  culture  to  that  of  a 
great  opportunity. 

What  subject  or  group  of  subjects  is  to  constitute 
(i)?  There  are  at  least  three,  and  quite  probably 
beyond  the  very  limited  range  of  my  knowledge 
there  are  other,  arrangements  of  studies  that  can  be 
contrived  to  supply  this  essential  substantial  part  of 
the  College  course.  Each  suffices  completely,  and 
I  would  hesitate  to  express  any  preference  for  one 
or  the  other.  Each  has  its  special  direction  towards 
certain  sorts  of  adult  function,  and  for  that  reason  it 
may  be  suggested  that  the  secondary  education  of  an 
English-speaking  country  might  very  well  afford  all 
three  (or  more)  types  of  secondary  course.  The 
small  schools  might  specialize  upon  the  type  locally 
most  desirable,  the  larger  might  group  its  triplicate 
(or  quadruplicate)  system  of  sustained  and  serious 
courses  about  a  common  Library  and  the  common 
arrangements  for  Section  ii.  of  the  College  scheme. 

The  first  of  these  possible  College  courses,  and  the 
one  most  likely  to  be  useful  and  fruitful  for  the  mass 
of  the  male  population  in  a  modern  community,  is  an 
expansion  of  the   Physics  of  the   Schooling  stage. 


Organization  of  Higher  Education     311 

It  may  be  very  conveniently  spoken  of  as  the 
Natural  Philosophy  course.  Its  backbone  will  be  an 
interlocking  arrangement  of  Mathematics,  Physics, 
and  the  principles  of  Chemistry,  and  it  will  take  up 
as  illustrative  and  mind-expanding  exercises.  Astron- 
omy, Geography,  and  Geology  conceived  as  a  general 
history  of  the  Earth.  Holding  the  whole  together 
will  be  the  theory  of  the  Conservation  of  Energy  in 
its  countless  aspects  and  a  speculative  discussion  of 
the  constitution  of  matter.  A  certain  minimum  of 
Historical  and  Political  reading  and  of  general  "Li- 
brary" would  be  insisted  upon  in  Section  ii.  This 
could  be  made  a  quite  noble  and  spacious  course  of 
instruction  extending  over  from  three  to  five  years, 
from  fourteen  or  fifteen  up  to  eighteen  or  twenty-one 
(or  even  longer  in  the  case  of  those  partially  em- 
ployed) ;  its  less  successful  products  would  drop  out — 
it  might  be  before  completion — to  take  up  the  work 
of  more  or  less  skilled  artisans  and  technical  workers, 
and  its  more  successful  ones  would  pass  some  of  them 
into  the  technical  colleges  for  special  industries  with 
a  view  to  business  direction,  into  special  study  for  the 
engineering  trades,  for  the  profession  of  soldiering,^ 

*  I  may  perhaps  explain  that  my  conception  of  military  organization 
is  a  universal  service  of  citizens — non-professional  soldiers — who  will 
be  trained — possibly  in  boyhood  and  youth,  to  shoot  very  well  indeed, 
to  ride  either  horses  or  bicycles,  and  to  take  up  positions  and  move 
quickly  and  easily  in  organized  bodies,  and,  in  addition,  a  special 
graduated  profession  of  soldiers  who  will  be  in  their  various  ranks 
engineers,  gunners,  special-force  men  of  various  sorts,  and,  in  the  higher 
ranks,  masters  of  all  the  organization  and  methods  necessary  for  the 


312  Mankind  in  the  Making 

or  for  the  naval  and  mercantile  services,  or  into  re- 
search and  the  literature  of  science.  Some  also  would 
pass  on  to  study  for  the  profession  of  medicine  through 
more  special  work  in  Chemistry  and  Physiology,  and 
some  with  a  proclivity  for  drawing  and  design  would 
become  architects,  designers  of  appliances,  and  the 
like.  The  idea  of  the  ordinary  development  of  this 
course  is  not  so  very  remote  from  what  already  exists 
in  Great  Britain  as  the  Organized  Science  School, 
but,  as  with  all  these  courses,  it  would  be  done  in 
varying  degrees  of  thoroughness  and  extension  under 
varying  conditions.  This  is  the  first  of  my  three 
alternative  College  courses. 

The  second  course  will  probably  seem  less  accept- 
able to  many  readers,  but  all  who  are  qualified  to 
speak  will  testify  to  its  enormous  educational  value. 
It  is  what  one  may  speak  of  as  the  Biological  Course. 
Just  as  the  conception  of  Energy  will  be  the  central 
idea  of  the  Natural  Philosophy  course,  so  the  con- 
ception of  Organic  Evolution  will  be  the  central  idea 
of  the  Biological  Course.  A  general  review  of  the 
whole  field  of  Biology — not  only  of  the  Natural 
History  of  the  present  but  of  the  geological  record — 
in  relation  to  the  known  laws  and  the  various  main 


rapid  and  effective  utilization  of  the  non-professional  manhood  of  the 
country,  of  volunteers,  militia,  or  short-service  enlistment  levies,  drawn 
from  this  general  supply,  and  of  all  the  machinery  of  communication, 
provisioning,  and  so  forth.  They  will  not  be  necessarily  the  "social 
superiors"  of  their  commands,  but  they  will  naturally  exercise  the  same 
authoritative  command  in  warfare  that  a  doctor  does  in  a  sick-room 


Organization  of  Higher  Education     313 

theories  of  the  evolutionary  process  will  be  taken, 
and  in  addition  some  special  department,  either  the 
Comparative  Anatomy  of  the  Vertebrata  chiefly,  or 
of  the  plants  chiefly,  or  of  several  Invertebrated 
groups  chiefly,  will  be  exhaustively  worked  out  in 
relation  to  these  speculations.  The  first  of  these  al- 
ternatives is  not  only  probably  the  most  invigorating 
mental  exercise  of  the  three  but  bears  also  more 
directly  upon  the  practical  concerns  of  life.  Physi- 
ology will  be  taken  up  in  relation  to  this  special  ex- 
haustive study,  and  the  "Elementary  Physics  of  the 
Schooling"  stage  will  be  prolonged  up  into  a  treat- 
ment of  Chemistry  with  especial  reference  to  bio- 
logical problems.  Through  such  a  course  as  this 
students  might  pass  to  the  study  of  medicine  just  as 
well  as  through  Natural  Philosophy,  and  the  medical 
profession  would  profit  by  the  clash  of  the  two  types 
of  student.  The  biological  course,  with  its  insistence 
upon  heredity  and  physiological  facts,  would  also  give 
the  very  best  and  gravest  preparation  in  the  world 
for  the  practical  concerns  of  motherhood.  From  it 
students  would  pass  on  illuminated  to  the  study  of 
psychology,  philosophical  science,  and  educational 
method.  The  training  in  the  discussion  of  broad 
generalization,  and  much  of  the  fact  involved,  would 
be  a  most  excellent  preliminary  to  special  theological 
study  and  also  to  the  advanced  study  of  economics 
and  political  science.  From  this  course  also  artists 
of  various  sorts  would  escape  through  the  avenue  of 
Section  ii.  which,  by  the  by,  would  have  to  involve 


314  Majikind  in  the  Making 

Historical  Reading.  So  much  for  my  second  sug- 
gested College  course. 

The  third  of  these  three  alternative  courses  is  the 
History  course,  done  extensively  in  relation  to  gen- 
eral geography,  economic  theory,  and  the  general 
evolution  of  the  world,  and  intensively  in  relation  to 
British  or  American  history,  and  perhaps  to  some 
particular  period.  Out  of  it  would  spring  a  thorough 
study  of  the  development  of  English  literature  and 
also  of  the  legal  systems  of  the  English-speaking 
peoples.  This  course  also  would  be  a  way  of  approach 
to  philosophical  science,  to  theology,  to  the  thorough 
study  of  economic  and  political  science,  and  possibly 
it  would  contribute  a  larger  proportion  of  its  students 
to  imaginative  literature  than  either  of  the  two  pre- 
ceding courses.  It  would  also  be  the  natural  pre- 
liminary course  to  the  special  study  of  law  and  so 
a  source  of  politicians.  In  the  Section  ii.  of  this 
course  a  light  but  lucid  treatment  of  the  great 
generalizations  of  physical  and  biological  science 
would  be  desirable.  And  from  this  course  also  the 
artist  would  break  away. 

Conceivably  there  are  other  courses.  The  course 
in  Mathematics  as  one  sees  it  given  to  the  Cambridge 
Tripos  men,  and  what  is  called  the  Classical  course, 
will  occur  to  the  reader.  Few  people,  however,  are  to 
be  found  who  will  defend  the  exclusively  mathemat- 
ical "grind"  as  a  sound  intellectual  training,  and  so  it 
need  not  be  discussed  here.  The  case,  however,  is 
different  with  the  classical  course.     It  is  alleged  by 


Organization  of  Higher  Education    315 

those  who  have  had  the  experience  that  to  learn 
Latin  and  Greek  more  or  less  thoroughly  and  then  to 
stumble  through  one  or  two  Latin  and  Greek  authors 
"in  the  original"  has  an  educational  value  surpassing 
any  conceivable  alternative.  There  is  a  mysterious 
benefit  from  one's  private  translation  however  bad 
that  no  other  translation  however  good  can  impart. 
Plato,  for  example,  who  has  certainly  in  the  very  best 
translations,  quite  perceptibly  no  greater  mind  than 
Lord  Bacon,  Newton,  Darwin,  or  Adam  Smith,  be- 
comes god-like  to  all  who  pass  beyond  the  Little-Go. 
The  controversy  is  as  old  as  the  Battle  of  the  Books, 
a  quite  interminable  wrangle,  which  I  will  not  even 
attempt  to  summarize  here.  For  my  own  part  I 
believe  all  this  defence  of  the  classics  on  the  part  of 
men  with  classical  education  is  but  one  more  example 
of  that  human  weakness  that  splashes  Oxford  meta- 
physical writings  with  needless  tags  and  shreds  of 
Greek  and  set  Demetrius  the  silversmith  bawling  in 
the  streets.  If  the  reader  is  of  another  opinion  there 
is  no  need  to  convert  him  in  this  present  argument, 
provided  only  that  he  will  admit  the  uselessness  of 
his  high  mystery  for  the  training  of  the  larger  mass 
of  modern  men.  By  his  standards  they  are  beneath  it. 
A  convention  upon  this  issue  between  the  two  parties 
therefore  is  attainable.  Let  us  admit  the  classical 
course  for  the  parents  who  like  and  can  afford  this 
sort  of  thing  for  their  sons  and  daughters.  Let  us 
withdraw  all  objections  to  its  endowment,  unless  it 
is  quite  excessive  endowment.     Let  the  classical  be 


31 6  Mankind  in  the  Making 

the  senior  service,  and  the  classical  professor,  to  use 
his  own  queer  way  of  putting  things,  primus  inter 
pares.  That  will  make  four  courses  altogether,  the 
Classical,  the  Historical,  the  Biological,  and  the 
Physical,  for  one  or  more  of  which  all  the  secondary 
schools  and  colleges  in  that  great  English-speaking 
community  at  which  the  New  Republic  aims  should 
be  organized.^ 

It  may  be  objected  that  this  is  an  idealized 
proposal,  and  that  existing  conditions,  which  are,  of 
course,  the  material  out  of  which  new  conditions  are 
to  be  made  do  not  present  anything  like  this  form. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  if  only  the  reader  will  allow  for 
a  certain  difference  in  terminology,  they  do.  What 
I  have  here  called  Schooling  is,  so  far  as  the  age  of 
the  pupils  go,  typically  presented  in  Great  Britain  by 
what  is  called  the  elementary  school,  and  in  America 
by  the  public  school,  and  certain  schools  that  un- 
analytical  people  in  England,  mistaking  a  social  for 
an  educational  difference,  seem  disposed  to  class  with 
secondary  schools,  the  inferior  Grammar  Schools, 
the  cheaper  private   schools,   and   what   are  called 

'  One  may,  however,  suggest  one  other  course  as  possible  under 
special  conditions.  There  is  one  sort  of  art  that  requires  not  only  a 
very  rigorous  and  exhaustive  training,  but  also  an  early  commencement, 
and  that  is  music,  at  once  the  most  isolated  and  the  most  universal  of 
arts.  Exceptional  gifts  in  the  direction  of  music  will  have  appeared  in 
the  schooling  stage,  and  it  is  quite  conceivable  that  the  college  phase 
for  those  who  are  destined  for  a  musical  career  should  have  as  its  back- 
bone a  "grind"  in  the  theory  and  practice  of  music,  with  langiiages  and 
general  culture  relegated  to  a  Section  ii. 


Organization  of  Higher  Education    317 

Preparatory    Schools/    are    really    also    elementary 
schools.    The  latter  have  more  social  pretension  and 
sometimes   far   less    efficiency   than    a    Government 
Elementary   School,   but  that    is  all   the  difiference. 
All  these  schools  admit  of  a  gradual  approximation 
to  the  ideal  of  schooling  already  set  forth  in  the  sixth 
of  these  papers.    Some  are  already  within  a  measure- 
able  distance  of  that  ideal.     And  above  these  ele- 
mentary schools,  above  the  School  grade  proper,  and 
answering  to  what  is  here  called  College,  there  is  a 
great  variety  of  day  and  evening  schools  of  the  most 
varied  description  which  agree  all  of  them  in  the 
presentation   of  a   second    phase  in  the  educational 
process  beginning  about  the  age  of  thirteen  to  six- 
teen  and    going   on    to    nineteen   and    twenty.     In 
Great  Britain  such  institutions  are  sometimes  called 
secondary  schools  and  sometimes  colleges,  and  they 
have   no   distinct   boundary   line   to    separate   them 
from  the  University  proper,  on  the  one  hand,  or  the 
organized  Science   Schools  and   the   Higher  Grade 
Board  Schools  and  evening  classes  of  the  poorer  sort. 
The   Universities  and  medical  schools  are,   indeed, 
hampered  with  work  quite  similar  to  that  of  secondary 
schools  and  which  the  secondary  schools  have  failed 
to  do,  the  Cambridge  undergraduate  before  his  Little- 
Go,  the  London  University  medical  student  before 

'As  things  are,  there  is  no  doubt  a  considerable  advantage  in  the 
child  from  a  good  home  going  on  to  a  good  preparatory  school  instead 
of  entering  a  public  elementar>'  school,  and  the  passage  above  must  not 
be  misread  as  a  sweeping  condemnation  of  such  establishments. 


3i8  Mankind  in  the  Making 

his  Preliminary  Scientific  Examination,  are  simply 
doing  the  belated  work  of  this  second  stage.  And 
there  is,  I  doubt  not,  a  similar  vague  complexity  in 
America.  But  through  the  fog  something  very  like 
the  boundary  line  here  placed  about  fourteen  is  again 
and  again  made  out;  not  only  the  general  require- 
ments for  efficient  education,  but  the  trend  of  present 
tendency  seems  to  be  towards  a  scheme  of  three 
stages  in  which  a  first  stage  of  nine  or  ten  years  of 
increasingly  serious  Schooling  (Primary  Education), 
from  a  very  light  beginning  about  five  up  to  about 
fourteen,  is  to  be  followed  by  a  second  stage  of  Col- 
lege education  (Secondary  Education),  from  fourteen 
or  sixteen  to  an  upward  boundary  determined  by 
class  and  various  facilities,-  and  this  is  to  be  succeeded 
by  a  third  stage,  which  we  will  now  proceed  to  con- 
sider in  detail. 

Let  us  make  it  clear  at  once  that  this  third  stage 
is  a  much  ampler  thing  than  the  graduation  or  post 
graduation  work  of  a  university.  It  may  or  it  may 
not  include  that  as  an  ingredient.  But  the  intention 
is  to  express  all  those  agencies  (other  than  political, 
social,  and  economic  forces,  and  the  suggestions  that 
arise  from  them),  that  go  to  increase  and  build  up 
the  mental  structure  of  the  man  or  woman.  This 
includes  the  pulpit,  so  far  as  it  is  still  a  vehicle  for  the 
importation  of  ideas  and  emotions,  the  stage,  books 
that  do  anything  more  than  pass  the  time,  news- 
papers, the  Grove  and  the  Agora.  These  all,  in 
greater  or  lesser  degrees,  work  powerfully  together  to 


Organization  of  Higher  Education    319 

make  the  citizen.     They  work  most   powerfully,  of 
course,  in  those  plastic  unsettled  years  that  last  from 
adolescence  to  the  middle  twenties,  but  often  in  very 
slowly  diminishing  intensity  right   into   the   closing 
decades  of  middle  age.     However  things  may  have 
been  in  the  quieter  past  when  newspapers  did  not 
exist,  when  creeds  were  rigid,  plays  mere  spectacles 
to  be  seen  only  "in  Town,"  and  books  rare,  the  fact 
remains  that  to-day  everybody  goes  much  further  and 
learns  far  more  than  any  of  the  professedly  educa- 
tional agencies  can  be  held  accountable  for.     There 
was  a  time,  perhaps,  when  a  man  really  did  "settle 
down"  intellectually,  at  the  end  of  his  days  of  learning, 
when  the  only  way— outside  the  libraries  and  house- 
holds of  a  few  princely  personages— to  go  on  thinking 
and  to  participate  in  the  secular  development  of  ideas, 
was  to  go  to  a  University  and  hear  and  dispute.     But 
those  days  have  gone  for  a  hundred  years  at  least. 
They  have  gone  by,  and  the  strange  thing  is  that  a 
very  large  proportion  of  those  who  write  and  talk 
about  education  have  not  discovered  they  have  gone 
by,  and  still  think  and  talk  of  Universities  as  though 
they  were  the  only  sources  and  repositories  of  wisdom. 
They  conjure  up  a  vision  in  my  mind  of  an  absent- 
minded   water-seller,   bearing  his   precious   jars   and 
crying  his  wares  knee-deep,  and  going  deeper  into  a 
rising  stream.     Or  if  that  does  not  seem  just  to  the 
University  in  the  past,  an  image  of  a  gardener,  who 
long  ago  developed  a  novel  variety  of  some  great 
flower  which  has  now  scattered  its  wind-borne  seed 


320  Mankind  in  the  Making 

everywhere,  but  who  still  proffers  you  for  sale  in  a 
confidential,  condescending  manner  a  very  little,  very 
dear  packet  of  that  universal  commodity.  Until  the 
advent  of  Mr.  Ewart  (with  his  Public  Libraries'  Act), 
Mr.  Passmore  Edwards,  and  Mr.  Andrew  Carnegie, 
the  stream  of  endowment  for  research  and  teaching 
flowed  just  as  exclusively  to  the  Universities  as  it  did 
in  Tudor  times. 

Let  us  deal,  then,  first  with  the  finally  less  impor- 
tant and  more  formal  portion  of  th:  third  stage  in 
the  educational  process;  that  is  to  say,  with  the 
University  Course.  One  may  conceive  that  so  far  as 
positive  teaching  and  learning  go,  a  considerable 
proportion  of  the  population  will  never  pass  beyond 
the  second  stage  at  all.  They  will  fail  to  keep  up  in 
the  course  of  that  stage,  or  they  will  branch  off  into 
the  special  development  of  some  special  aptitude. 
The  failures  will  gravitate  into  positions  a  little  better 
perhaps,  but  analogous  to  those  taken  up  by  the 
failures  of  the  Schooling  phase.  The  common  clerks 
and  common  shop-hands,  for  example,  would  come  out 
here.  The  others,  who  fall  out  without  completing 
their  College  course,  but  who  may  not  be  College 
failures  at  all,  will  be  all  sorts  of  artists  and  special- 
izing persons  of  that  type.  A  great  many  girls,  for 
economic  and  other  reasons,  will  probably  never  get 
beyond  the  College  stage.  They  will  pass  from  the 
Biological  and  Historical  courses  into  employment, 
or  marry,  or  enter  domestic  life.  But  what  may 
finally  become  a  much  larger  proportion  of  New  Re- 


Organization  of  Higher  Education     321 

publican  citizens  will  either  from  the  beginning,  tak- 
ing the  College  course  in  the  evening,  or  after  a  year 
or  so  of  full  attendance  at  the  College  course,  start 
also  upon  the  third-grade  work,  the  preparation  for 
the  upper  ranks  of  some  technical  and  commercial 
employment,  for  the  systematic  and  liberal  instruc- 
tion that  will  replace  the  old  rule-of-thumb  appren- 
ticeship. One  can  imagine  a  great  variety  of  methods 
of  combining  the  apprenticeship  phase  of  serious  occu- 
pation with  the  College  course.  Many  waking  up  to  the 
demands  of  life  may  do  better  for  themselves  with  a 
desperately  clutched  College  course  of  evening  classes 
than  others  who  will  have  progressed  comfortably  in 
day  Colleges.  There  should  be  opportunity  by  means 
of  scholarship  openings  for  such  cases  of  a  late  awaken- 
ing tck  struggle  back  into  the  higher  education.  There 
may  be  every  gradation  from  siich  students  to  those 
who  will  go  completely  and  exhaustively  through  the 
College  and  who  will  then  go  on  at  one  and  twenty 
or  two  and  twenty  to  equally  complete  and  exhaustive 
work  in  the  third  grade.  One  imagines  the  third 
grade  in  its  completeness  as  a  most  varied  choice  of 
thorough  studies  carried  on  for  three  or  four  years 
after  eighteen  or  twenty-one,  special  schools  of  medi- 
cine, law,  engineering,  psychology,  and  educational 
science,  economics  and  political  science,  economics 
and  commercial  science,  philosophy  and  theology, 
and  physical  science.  Quite  apart  from  the  obvious 
personal  limitation,  the  discussion  of  the  method 
of   dealing   specifically   with    each   of   these   subjects 


322  Mankind  in  the  Making 

would  be  too  diversified  and  special  a  theme  to 
occupy  me  now.  The  larger  fact  to  which  attention 
has  to  be  given  is  this :  that  all  these  studies  and 
all  the  technical  study  and  such  like  preparation  at 
lower  levels  of  the  third  stage  must  be  as  it  were 
floating  in  a  common  body  of  Thought,  which  is  the 
unifying  principle,  the  common  initiative,  the  real 
common  life  of  the  truly  civilized  state,  and  that  this 
body  of  Thought  is  no  longer  to  be  contained  within 
the  form  of  a  University.  It  is  the  larger  of  the  two 
things.  And  the  last  question,  therefore,  in  these 
speculations  is  the  general  organization  of  that  body 
of  Thought,  that  is  to  say  of  contemporary  literature, 
using  the  word  in  its  widest  sense  to  cover  all  that 
is  good  in  journalism,  all  untechnical  speculative, 
philosophical  writing,  all  that  is  true  and  new  In  the 
drama,  in  poetry,  fiction  or  any  other  distinctly 
literary  form,  and  all  scientific  publication  that  is  not 
purely  a  matter  of  recording  or  technical  working  out, 
all  scientific  publication  that  is,  that  deals  with  gen- 
eral ideas. 

There  was  a  time  when  the  higher  education  was 
conceived  of  as  entirely  a  matter  of  learning.  To 
endow  chairs  and  teachers,  and  to  enable  promising 
scholars  to  come  and  hear  the  latter  was  the  complete 
organization  of  the  higher  education.  It  is  within 
quite  recent  years  that  the  conception  of  endowing 
research  for  its  own  sake,  leaving  the  Research 
Professor  free  altogether  from  direct  teaching  or  with 
only  a  few  good  pupils  whose  work  consisted  chiefly 


Organization  of  Higher  Education    323 

in  assimilating  his  ideas  and  helping  with  his  re- 
searches, has  become  at  all  widely  acceptable. 
Indirectly,  of  course,  the  Research  Professor  is  just 
as  much  a  teacher  as  the  Teaching  Professor,  because 
his  results  become  accessible  as  he  writes  them. 
Our  work  now  is  to  broaden  both  the  conception  of 
research  and  of  teaching,  to  recognize  that  what- 
ever imports  fresh  and  valid  ideas,  fresh  and  valid 
aspects — not  simply  of  chemical  and  physical  matters, 
but  of  aesthetic,  social,  and  political  matters,  partakes 
of  the  honour  and  claims  of  research — and  that  what- 
ever conveys  ideas  and  aspects  vividly  and  clearly 
and  invigoratingly,  not  simply  by  word  of  mouth  but 
by  book  or  picture  or  article,  is  teaching.  The  publi- 
cation of  books,  the  whole  business  of  bringing  the 
contemporary  book  most  efificiently  home  to  the 
general  reader,  the  business  of  contemporary  criticism, 
the  encouragement  and  support  of  contemporary 
writers,  is  just  as  vitally  important  in  the  modem  state 
as  the  organization  of  Colleges  and  Schools,  and  just 
as  little  to  be  left  to  the  enterprise  of  isolated 
individuals  working  primarily  upon  commercial  lines 
for  gain. 

There  are  two  aspects  of  this  question.  There  is 
the  simpler  one  of  getting  an  abundance  of  good 
books,  classical  and  contemporary,  and  of  good 
publications  distributed  everywhere  through  the 
English-speaking  world,  and  there  is  the  more  subtle 
and  complex  problem  of  getting,  stimulating,  and 
sustaining  the  original  writers  and  the  original  critics 


324  Mankmd  in  the  Making 

and  investigators  upon  whom  the  general  develop- 
ment of  contemporary  thought,  upon  whom  indeed 
the  progress  of  the  world  finally  depends.  The  latter 
problem  may  be  reserved  for  the  next  paper,  and  here 
we  will  deal  simply  with  the  question  of  access  and 
distribution. 

For  the  present  we  must  assume  the  quality  of 
the  books;  all  that  sort  of  question  must  be  deferred 
for  our  final  discussion.  We  will  simply  speak  of 
good  books,  serious  books,  on  the  one  hand,  and  of 
light  and  merely  amusing  books  on  the  other,  in  an 
intentionally  vague  way.  The  former  sort  of  books 
is  our  present  concern;  pleasure  as  an  end,  pleasure 
except  as  necessary  recuperation,  is  no  affair  for  the 
state. 

Books  are  either  bought  or  borrowed  for  reading, 
and  we  have  to  consider  what  can  be  done  to  secure 
the  utmost  efficiency  in  the  announcement,  lending 
and  selling  of  books.  We  have  also  to  consider  the 
best  possible  means  of  distributing  periodicals.  We 
have  particularly  to  consider  how  books  specifically 
"good,"  or  "thorough,"  or  "serious,"  and  periodicals 
that  are  "sound"  and  "stimulating"  are  to  be  made 
as  widely  and  invitingly  accessible  as  possible.  The 
machinery  we  have  in  hand  are  the  booksellers  and 
the  newsvendors,  the  circulating  libraries,  the  post- 
office,  and  the  free  public  libraries  that  are  now  being 
energetically  spread  throughout  the  land  [by  men 
who,  in  this  aspect,  answer  very  closely  to  the  con- 
ception of  New  Republicans  as  it  is  here  unfolded], 


Organization  of  Higher  Education     325 

and  to  bring  and  keep  all  this  machinery  to  the  very 
highest  level  of  efficiency  is  integral  to  the  New 
Republican  scheme  of  activity. 

It  may  be  objected  that  the  organization  of  book- 
selling and  publishing  is  the  discussion  of  trivial  de- 
tails in  the  intellectual  life  of  a  people,  but  indeed 
that  is  not  so.  It  is  a  constant  trouble,  a  perpetual 
drain  upon  the  time  and  energy  of  every  man  who 
participates  in  that  Hfe,  to  get  the  books  that  are 
necessary  to  the  development  of  his  thoughts.  The 
high  price  of  books,  burthensome  as  it  is,  is  the  lesser 
evil,  the  great  trouble  is  the  trouble  of  access.  There 
are  a  great  number  of  people  now  who  read  nothing 
at  all,  or  only  promiscuous  fiction,  who  would  cer- 
tainly become  real  readers  were  books  of  any  other 
sort  attractively  available.  These  things  are  not 
trivial.  The  question  of  book  distribution  is  as  vitally 
important  to  the  intellectual  health  of  a  modern 
people  as  are  open  windows  in  cases  of  phthisis.  No 
nation  can  live  under  modern  conditions  unless  its 
whole  population  is  mentally  aerated  with  books. 

That  allusion  to  the  predominance  of  fiction  brings 
one  round  to  the  question  of  the  Public  Library. 
One  is  constantly  reading  attacks  on  these  new  and 
most  promising  institutions,  and  always  these  attacks 
base  themselves  on  the  fact  that  the  number  of  novels 
taken  out  was  so  many  times,  so  many  hundred  times 
greater  than  the  number  of  "serious  books."  Follows 
nonsense  about  "scrappy"  reading,  shallowness  of  the 
public  mind,  and  so  forth.     In  Great  Britain  public 


326  Mankind  in  the  Making 

pomposities  take  up  the  strain  and  deliver  large 
vague,  foolish  discourses  on  our  intellectual  decline. 
It  occurs  to  none  of  these  people — nothing,  indeed, 
ever  does  seem  to  occur  to  this  sort  of  people — to 
inquire  if  a  man  or  woman  can  get  serious  reading 
from  a  public  library.  An  inspection  of  a  PubUc  Li- 
brary Catalogue  reveals,  no  doubt,  a  certain  propor- 
tion of  "serious"  books  available,  but,  as  a  rule,  that 
"serious  side"  is  a  quite  higgledy-piggledy  heap  of 
fragments.  Suppose,  for  example,  an  intelligent  me- 
chanic has  a  proclivity  for  economic  questions,  he 
will  find  no  book  whatever  to  guide  him  to  what 
literature  there  may  be  upon  those  questions.  He 
will  plunge  into  the  catalogue,  and  discover  perhaps 
a  few  publications  of  the  Cobden  Club,  Henry 
George's  Progress  and  Poverty,  J.  S.  Mill's  Auto- 
biography, Ruskin's  Unto  This  Last,  The  Statesman's 
Year  Book  for  i8q^,  and  a  text-book  specially  adapted 
to  such  and  such  an  examination  by  the  tutors  of  some 
Correspondence  College.  What  can  you  expect  from 
such  a  supply  but  a  pitiful  mental  hash?  What  is  the 
most  intelligent  of  mechanics  likely  to  secure  for  him- 
self from  this  bran  pie?  Serious  subjects  are  not  to 
be  read  in  this  wild  disorderly  way.  But  fiction  can 
be.  A  novel  is  fairly  complete  in  itself,  and  in  sticking 
to  novels,  the  Public  Library  readers  show,  I  submit, 
a  better  literary  sense  and  a  finer  intellectual  feeling 
than  the  muddle-headed,  review-inspired,  pretentious 
people  who  blame  them. 

But  manifestly  the  Public  Libraries  ought  to  be 


Orgaiuzation  of  Higher  Education    327 

equipped  for  serious   reading.    Too  many  of  them 
are  covers  without  meat,  or,  at  least,  with  nothing 
to    satisfy    a    respectable    mind    hunger.     And    the 
obvious  direct  method  to  equip  them  is  to  organize 
an  Association,  to  work,  if  possible,  with  the  Libra- 
rians, and  get  this  "serious"  side  of  the  Libraries,  this 
vitally  important  side,  into  better  order.    A  few  men 
with  a  little  money  to  spend  could  do  what  is  wanted 
for   the   whole    English-speaking   world.    The   first 
business  of  such   an  Association   would   be   to  get 
"Guides"  to  various  fields  of  human  interest  written, 
guides  that  should  be  clear,  explicit  Bibliographies, 
putting  all  the  various  writers  into  their  relationships 
one  to  another,  advising  what  books  should  be  first 
taken  by  the  beginner  in  the  field,  indicating  their 
trend,  pointing  out  the  less  technical  ones  and  those 
written  obscurely.     Differential  type  might  stamp  the 
more  or  less  important  works.    These  Guides  ought 
to  go  to  every  Public  Library,  and  I  think  also  that  all 
sorts  of  people  would  be  eager  to  buy  them  if  they 
were  known  to  be  comprehensive,  intelligent,  and  in- 
clusive.   They  might  even  "pay."    Then  I  would  sug- 
gest this  Association  should  make  up  lists  of  books 
to  present  an  outline  course  or  a  full  course  corre- 
sponding to  each  Guide.    Where  books  were  already 
published  in  a  cheap  edition,  the  Association  would 
merely  negotiate  with  the  publisher  for  the  special 
supply  of  a  few  thousand  copies  of  each.     Where 
books  were  modern  and  dear  the  Association  would 
negotiate  with  publisher  and  author,  for  the  printing 


328  Mankind  in  the  Making 

of  a  special  Public  Library  Edition.  They  would  then 
distribute  these  sets  of  books  either  freely  or  at  special 
rates,  three  or  four  sets  or  more  to  each  Library.  In 
many  cases  the  Association  would  probably  find  it 
preferable  to  print  its  editions  afresh,  with  specially 
written  introductions,  defining  the  relationship  of 
each  book  to  the  general  literature  of  the  subject.* 

Such  an  Association  in  the  present  state  of  publish- 
ing would  become — in  Great  Britain,  at  any  rate — 
quite  inevitably  a  Publishing  Association.  A  succes- 
sion of  vigorous,  well-endowed  Voluntary  Publishing 
Associations  is  a  quite  vital  necessity  in  the  modern 
state.  A  succession  is  needed  because  each  age  has  its 
unexpected  new  needs  and  new  methods,  and  it  would 
not  be  a  bad  idea  to  endow  such  associations  with  a 
winding-up  clause  that  would  plump  them,  stock,  un- 
spent capital,  and  everything  except  perhaps  a  pension 
fund  for  the  older  employes,  into  the  funds  of  some 

>  In  America  Mr.  George  lies  is  already  organizing  the  general  ap- 
praisement of  books  for  the  public  library  reader  in  a  most  promising 
manner.  The  Bibliography  0}  the  Literature  0}  American  History,  with 
an  appraisal  of  each  book,  which  has  appeared  under  his  direction,  is 
edited  by  Mr.  Lamed,  and  is  a  most  efficient  performance;  it  is  to  be 
kept  up  to  date  by  Mr.  P.  P.  Wells,  librarian  of  the  Yale  Law  School. 
It  includes  an  appendLx  by  Professor  Channing,  of  Harvard,  which  is  on 
the  lines  of  the  "Guides"  I  suggest,  though  scarcely  so  full  as  I  should 
like  them.  This  appendix  is  reprinted  separately  for  five  cents,  and 
it  is  almost  all  English  public  librarians  and  libraries  need  so  far  as 
Amercan  history  goes.  The  English  Fabian  Society,  I  may  note,  pub- 
lishes a  sixpenny  bibliography  of  social  and  economic  science,  but  it 
is  a  mere  list  for  local  librarians,  and  of  little  use  to  the  uninitiated 
reader. 


Organization  of  Higher  Education    329 

great  Public  Library  at  the  end  of  thirty  or  forty 
years.  Several  such  Associations  have  played,  or  are 
still  playing  a  useful  part  in  British  affairs,  but  most 
of  them  have  lost  the  elasticity  of  youth.  Lord 
Brougham's  Society  for  the  Diffusion  of  Useful 
Knowledge  was  one  of  the  earliest,  and  we  have  to- 
day, for  example,  the  Society  for  the  Promotion  of 
Christian  Knowledge,  the  Catholic  Truth  Society,  the 
Rationalist  Press  Association,  and  the  Fabian  Society. 
There  is  a  real  need  to-day  for  one — indeed  there  is 
room  for  several — Publishing  Associations  that  would 
set  themselves  to  put  bright  modern  lights  into  these 
too  often  empty  lanterns,  the  Public  Libraries.  So  lit, 
Great  Britain  and  America  would  have  in  them  an 
instrument  of  public  education  unparalleled  in  the 
world,  infinitely  better  adapted  to  the  individualistic 
idiosyncracy  of  our  peoples  than  any  imitation  of  Ger- 
man colleges  can  possibly  be.  Propaganda  of  all  sorts 
could  be  diverted  to  this  purpose.  Persons  of  imperi- 
alistic tendencies  might  well  consider  the  advisability 
of  Guides  to  good  geographical  and  historical  reading 
and  sets  of  travel  books,  and  of  geographical  and  his- 
torical works.  Americanisers  might  consider  the  pos- 
sibility of  sets  that  would  help  the  common  British  to 
a  clearer  idea  of  America,  and  Americans  to  a  realiza- 
tion that  the  British  Islands  are  something  more  than 
three  obscure  patches  of  land  entirely  covered  by  a 
haughty  peerage  and  a  slightly  absurd  but  historically 
interesting  Crown.  .  .  .  Indeed,  whatever  you  want 
thought  or  believed,  1  would  say,  give  books! 


330  Mankind  in  the  Making 

But  the  good  New  Republican  would  have  a  wider 
scope  for  his  Publishing  Association  than  to  subdue 
it  to  this  specific  doctrine  or  that.  It  is  not  the  opin- 
ion makes  the  man;  it  is  not  the  conclusion  makes  the 
book.  We  live  not  in  the  truth,  but  in  the  promise 
of  the  truth.  Sound  thinking,  clearly  and  honestly 
set  forth,  that  is  the  sole  and  simple  food  of  human 
greatness,  the  real  substance  and  the  real  wealth  of 
nations ;  the  key  that  will  at  last  unlock  the  door  to  all 
we  can  dream  of  or  desire. 


X 

Thought  in  the  Modern  State 

These  speculations  upon  the  possibilities  and  means 
of  raising  the  average  human  result  have  brought  us 
at  last  to  the  problem  of  increasing  the  amount  of 
original  intellectual  activity  in  the  state,  as  a  culmi- 
nating necessity.  That  average  child  who  threads  our 
speculations  has  been  bred  and  fed,  we  now  suppose, 
educated  in  school  and  college,  put  under  stimulating 
political  and  social  conditions  and  brought  within 
reach  and  under  the  influence  of  the  available  litera- 
ture of  the  time,  and  he  is  now  emerging  into  adult 
responsibility.  His  individual  thought  and  purpose 
has  to  swim  in  and  become  part  of  the  general  thought 
and  purpose  of  the  community.  If  that  general  fl!ow 
of  thought  is  meagre,  his  individual  life  will  partake 
of  its  limitations.  As  the  general  thought  rises  out  of 
its  pools  and  narrow  channels  towards  a  wide  flood, 
so  each  individual  becomes  more  capable  of  free  move- 
ments and  spacious  co-operations  towards  the  general 
end.  We  have  bred  our  citizen  and  trained  him  only 
to  waste  all  his  energy  at  last ;  he  is  no  better  than  the 
water  in  an  isolated  dry-season  pool  in  the  bed  of  a 
tropical  river,  unless  he  can  mingle  in  the  end  with  the 

general  sea  of  thought  and  action. 

331 


332  Mankind  in  the  Making 

Thought  is  the  Hfe,  the  spontaneous  flexibility  of  a 
community.  A  community  that  thinks  freely  and  fully 
throughout  its  population  is  capable  of  a  thousand 
things  that  are  impossible  in  an  unthinking  mass  of 
people.  The  latter,  collectively  considered,  is  a  large 
rigid  thing,  a  lifeless  thing,  that  will  break  rather  than 
bend,  that  will  die  rather  than  develop.  Its  inevitable 
end  is  dust  and  extinction.  Look  at  the  thing  from 
the  baser  level  of  political  conceptions,  and  still  that 
floating  tide  of  thought  is  a  necessity.  With  thought 
and  gathered  knowledge  things  that  mean  tumult, 
bloodshed,  undying  hatreds,  schisms  and  final  disaster 
to  uncivilized  races,  are  accomplished  in  peace;  con- 
stitutional changes,  economic  reorganizations,  bound- 
ary modifications  and  a  hundred  grave  matters. 
Thought  is  the  solvent  that  will  make  a  road  for  men 
through  Alpine  difficulties  that  seem  now  unconquer- 
able, that  will  dissolve  those  gigantic  rocks  of  custom 
and  tradition  that  loom  so  forbiddingly  athwart  all 
our  further  plans.  For  three  thousand  years  and  more 
the  Book  has  been  becoming  more  and  more  the  evi- 
dent salvation  of  man.  If  our  present  civilization  col- 
lapse, it  will  collapse  as  all  previous  civilizations  have 
collapsed,  not  from  want  of  will  but  from  the  want  of 
organization  for  its  will,  for  the  want  of  that  knowl- 
edge, that  conviction,  and  that  general  understanding 
that  would  have  kept  pace  with  the  continually  more 
complicated  problems  that  arose  about  it.^ 

'  Dr.  Beattie  Crozier,  in  his  most  interesting  and  suggestive  History 
of  Intellectual  Development,  terms  the  literary  apparatus  that  holds  a 


Thought  in  the  Modem  State      333 

One  writes  "our  present  civilization"  and  of  pre- 
vious civilizations,  but  indeed  no  civilizations  have  yet 
really  come  into  existence.  Tribes  have  aggregated 
into  nations,  nations  have  aggregated  into  empires, 
and  then,  after  a  struggle,  has  come  a  great  confusion 
of  thought,  a  failure  to  clarify  a  common  purpose,  and 
disintegration.  Each  successive  birth  has  developed 
a  more  abundant  body  of  thought,  a  more  copious  lit- 
erature than  the  last,  each  has  profited  by  the  legacy  of 
the  previous  failure,  but  none  have  yet  developed 
enough.  Mankind  has  been  struggling  to  win  this 
step  of  a  permanent  civilized  state,  and  has  never  yet 
attained  any  sort  of  permanency — unless  perhaps  in 
China.  And  that  sole  imperfect  permanency  was  based 
primarily  upon  a  literature.  A  literature  is  the  tri- 
umphant instrument  of  the  invincible  culture  of  the 
Jews.  Through  the  whole  volume  of  history  the 
thoughtful  reader  cannot  but  exclaim,  again  and  again, 
"But  if  they  had  only  understood  one  another,  all  this 
bloodshed,  all  this  crash,  disaster,  and  waste  of  gen- 
erations could  have  been  avoided!"  Our  time  has 
come,  and  we  of  the  European  races  are  making  our 
struggle  in  our  turn.  Slavery  still  fights  a  guerilla 
war  in  factory  and  farm,  cruelty  and  violence  peep 
from  every  slum,  barbaric  habits,  rude  barbaric  ways 
of  thinking,  grossness  and  stupidity  are  still  all  about 

people  together  to  a  common  purpose,  the  "Bible"  of  that  people, 
and  suggests  that  the  "Bible"  of  a  modern  people  should  be  the  History 
of  Civilization.  His  work  expresses  by  very  different  phrases  and 
methods  a  line  of  thought  closely  akin  to  the  thesis  of  this  paper. 


334  Mankind  in  the  Making 

us.  And  yet  in  many  ways  we  seem  to  have  got  nearer 
to  the  hope  of  permanent  beginnings  than  any  of  those 
previous  essays  in  civihzation.  Collectively  we  know 
a  great  deal  more,  and  more  of  us  are  in  touch  with  the 
general  body  of  knowledge  than  was  ever  the  case  at 
any  earlier  stage.  Assuredly  we  know  enough  to  hope 
that  we  have  passed  the  last  of  the  Dark  Ages.  But 
though  we  hope,  we  deal  w^ith  no  certainties,  and  it  is 
upon  the  broadening  and  increase  of  the  flow  of  ideas 
that  our  hope  depends. 

At  present  this  stream  of  thought  and  common 
understanding  is  not  nearly  so  wide  and  deep  as  it 
might  conceivably  become,  as  it  must  become  if  indeed 
this  present  civilization  is  to  be  more  than  another 
false  start.  Our  society  ^  has  ceased  to  be  homoge- 
neous, and  it  has  become  a  heterogeneous  confusion 
without  any  secure  common  grounds  of  action,  under 
the  stress  of  its  own  material  achievements.  For 
the  lack  of  a  sufficient  literature  we  specialize  into 
inco-ordinated  classes.  A  number  of  new  social 
types  are  developing,  ignorant  of  each  other,  ignorant 
almost  of  themselves,  full  of  mutual  suspicions  and 
mutual  misunderstandings,  narrow,  limited,  and  dan- 
gerously incapable  of  intelligent  collective  action  in 
the  face  of  crises.  The  medical  man  sees  nothing 
beyond  his  profession ;  he  misunderstands  the  artist, 
the  divine,  and  the  engineer.  The  engineer  hates 
and  despises  the  politician,  the  lawyer  misses  the 
aims  of  the  medical  man,  the  artist  lives  angrily  in  a 

^  Anticipations,  OcL^^itx  III.     Developing  Social  Elements. 


Thought  in  the  Modern  State      335 

stuffy  little  corner  of  pure  technique;  none  of  them 
read  any  general  literature  at  all  except  perhaps  a 
newspaper.  Each  thinks  parochially  in  his  own  limits, 
and,  except  for  his  specialty,  is  an  illiterate  man.  It 
is  absolutely  necessary  to  the  progress  of  our  civil- 
ization that  these  isolations  should  be  overcome,  that 
the  community  should  become  aware  of  itself  collect- 
ively and  should  think  as  a  whole.  And  the  only  thing 
that  can  overcome  these  isolations  and  put  the  mass 
of  intelligent  men  upon  a  common  basis  of  under- 
standing, is  an  abundant  and  almost  universally  in- 
fluential contemporary  literature. 

We  have  already  discussed  the  possibility  of  devel- 
oping the  innervation  of  the  state,  the  distribution  of 
books,  the  stimulation  and  direction  of  reading,  and 
all  the  peripheral  aspects  of  literature,  and  we  come 
now  to  the  difficult  and  intricate  problem  of  whether 
we  can  do  anything,  and  what  it  is  we  may  do,  to  stim- 
ulate the  central  thought.  Can  we  hope  to  improve 
the  conditions  of  literary  production,  to  make  our  lit- 
erature more  varied,  quintessential  and  abundant,  to 
enforce  it  with  honour  and  help,  to  attract  to  its  ser- 
vice every  man  and  woman  with  gifts  of  value,  and  to 
make  the  most  of  these  gifts? 

Quite  a  number  of  people  will  assert  that  those 
things  that  constitute  literature  come  and  go  beyond 
the  control  and  will  of  man,  they  will  speak  of 
Shakespeare  as  being  a  sort  of  mystical  consequence, 
of  Roger  Bacon  or  Newton  as  men  independent  of 
circumstances,  inevitably  great.     And  if  they  are  by 


33^  Mankind  in  the  Making 

way  of  being  comic  writers — the  word  "humorist,"  as 
Schopenhauer  long  since  pointed  out,  is  a  stolen  lion's 
skin  for  these  gentry — they  will  become  extremely 
facetious  about  the  proposed  school  for  Bacons  and 
Shakespeares.  But  a  little  reflection  will  convince  the 
reader  that  none  of  the  great  figures  of  the  past  ap- 
peared without  certain  conditions  being  added  to  their 
inherent  powers.  In  the  first  place,  they  had  to  be 
reasonably  sure  of  a  sympathetic  and  intelligent  atmos- 
phere, however  limited  in  extent — there  was  no  Plato 
in  the  heroic  age,  and  no  Newton  during  the  Hep- 
tarchy— and  in  the  second,  the  medium,  language  or 
what  not,  had  to  be  ready  for  their  use.  In  the  third 
place  they  needed  personally  a  certain  minimum  of 
training  and  preparation,  and  in  the  fourth  they  had 
to  feel  that  for  some  reason — not  necessarily  a  worldly 
one — the  thing  was  "worth  while."  Given  a  "devel- 
oper" of  these  ingredients,  and  they  appeared.  But 
without  this  developer  they  would  not  have  appeared, 
and  it  is  therefore  reasonable  to  suppose,  first,  that  a 
great  number  of  men  of  a  quality  as  rare  as  were  those 
who  constitute  the  unparalleled  roll  of  English  intel- 
lectual greatness,  lived  and  died  undeveloped  before 
ever  the  developer  was  compounded  at  all,  and  that 
even  in  the  last  few  hundred  years  the  necessary  com- 
bination has  fallen  upon  so  small  an  area  of  our  racial 
life  as  to  have  missed  far  more  than  it  has  hit.  The 
second  of  these  papers  is,  indeed,  an  attempt  to  present 
quite  convincingly  what  the  comic  man  will  probably 
regard  as  his  effectual  objection,  that  inherent  ten- 


Thought  in  the  Modern  State     337 

dency  cannot  be  produced  at  will.  But  that  the  devel- 
oper may  conceivably  be  made  in  much  greater  quan- 
tities and  spread  much  wider  than  it  is  at  present  is 
an  altogether  different  thing.  There  are,  one  submits, 
enormous  reserves  of  intellectual  force  unworked  and 
scarcely  touched,  even  to-day. 

We  have  already  discussed  the  means  and  possibil- 
ities of  a  net  of  education  that  should  sweep  through 
the  whole  social  body,  and  of  the  creation  of  an  atmos- 
phere more  alert  and  active  than  our  present  one.  We 
have  now  to  consider  how  the  greatest  proportion  of 
those  born  with  exceptional  literary  powers  may  be 
picked  out  and  induced  to  exercise  those  powers  to  the 
utmost.  Let  us  admit  at  once  that  this  is  a  research 
of  extraordinary  subtlety  and  complexity,  that  there 
are  ten  thousand  ways  of  going  wrong,  and  perhaps 
mischievously  wrong.  That  one  may  submit,  is  not  a 
sufficient  reason  for  abandonment  and  despair.  To 
take  an  analogous  case,  it  may  be  a  complex  and  labo- 
rious thing  to  escape  out  of  a  bear-pit  into  which  one 
has  fallen,  but  few  people  will  consider  that  a  reason 
for  inaction.  Even  if  they  had  small  hope  of  doing 
anything  effectual  they  might  find  speculation  and  ex- 
periments in  escape,  a  congenial  way  of  passing  the 
time.  It  is  the  sort  of  project  one  should  only  abandon 
at  the  final  and  conclusive  proof  of  its  impossibility. 
Exactly  the  same  principle  applies  to  human  destinies 
and  the  saving  of  other  lives  than  our  own.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  enterprise  is  not  at  all  a  hopeless 
one  if  it  is  undertaken  honestly,  warily,  and  boldly. 


338  Mankind  in  the  Making 

Let  us  consider  the  lines  upon  which  men  must  go  to 
ensure  the  greatest  possible  growth  of  original  thought 
in  the  state,  original  thought  of  which  what  scientific 
men  call  Research  is  only  one  phase. 

Before  we  can  consider  how  we  may  endow  him  and 
equip  him  and  help  him,  we  have  to  consider  how  we 
may  find  the  original  thinker,  and  we  have,  if  we  can, 
to  define  him  and  to  discover  whatever  we  can  of  his 
methods  and  habits,  his  natural  history  as  it  were. 
We  are  attempting  generalization  about  a  class  of  re- 
markably peculiar  and  difficult  persons.  They  are 
persons  either  of  great  intellectual  power  or  simply  of 
great  imaginative  power,  whose  bias  and  quality  it  is 
to  apply  these  exceptional  powers  not  directly  and  sim- 
ply to  their  personal  advancement  and  enrichment,  but 
primarily  through  philosophical,  scientific,  or  artistic 
channels,  to  the  increase  of  knowledge  or  of  wisdom  or 
of  both.  And  here  is  the  peculiar  point  in  this  problem, 
they  are  men  who  put,  or  who  wish  to  put  the  best 
of  themselves  and  most  of  themselves  into  occupations 
and  interests  that  do  not  lead  to  practical  results,  that 
often  for  the  individual  in  open  competition  and  the 
market  fail  more  or  less  completely  to  "pay."  Their 
activities,  of  course,  pay  tremendously  at  last  for  the 
race,  but  that  is  not  their  personal  point  of  application. 
They  take  their  lives  and  their  splendid  powers,  they 
waste  themselves  in  remote  and  inaccessible  regions 
and  bring  back  precious  things  that  immediately  any 
sharp  commercial-minded  man  will  turn  into  current 
coin  for  himself  and  the  use  of  the  world. 


Thought  in  the  Modem  State      339 

There  are  certain  things  follow  naturally  from  this 
remote  concentration,  and  we  must  persistently  keep 
them  in  mind.  These  men  of  exceptional  mental 
quality,  if  they  are  really  to  do  what  they  are 
specially  fitted  to  do,  with  all  their  power,  will  be  un- 
able to  give  their  personal  affairs,  their  personal  ad- 
vancement, sustained  attention.  In  a  democratic  com- 
munity whose  principle  is  "hustle,"  in  a  leisurely 
monarchy  where  only  opulence,  a  powerful  top-note, 
and  conspicuous  social  gifts  succeed,  they  will  have 
either  to  neglect  or  taint  their  special  talent  in  order 
to  survive.  It  does  not  follow  that  because  a  man's 
special  qualities  and  inclinations  are  towards,  let  us 
say,  illuminating  inquiries  into  the  constitution  of 
matter,  or  profound  and  beautiful  or  simply  beautiful 
renderings  of  his  individual  vision  of  life,  that  he  is 
indifferent  to  or  independent  of  honour,  of  all  the  free- 
doms to  do  and  to  rest  from  doing  that  come  with 
wealth,  or  of  the  many  lures  and  pleasures  of  life. 
Posthumous  Fame  is  losing  its  attractiveness  in  an 
age  which  has  discovered  excellent  reasons  for  doubt- 
ing whether  after  all  are  perennius  was  not  rather  too 
strong  a  figure.  However  powerful  the  impulse  to 
think,  to  state  and  create,  there  comes  a  point — often 
a  point  a  long  way  from  starvation — at  which  a  genius 
will  stop  working.  Your  man  of  scientific,  literary, 
or  artistic  genius  will  not  work  below  his  conception 
of  the  endurable  minimum,  the  minimum  of  hope  and 
honour  and  attention  as  well  as  of  material  things,  any 
more  than  a  coal-heaver  will — and  we  live  in  a  period 


340  Mankind  in  the  Making 

when  the  Standard  of  Life  tends  to  rise.  To  secure 
these  things  which  most  men  make  the  entire  objec- 
tive of  their  Hves  is,  or  should  be,  an  irrelevancy  to  the 
man  of  exceptional  gifts.  This  means  an  enormous 
handicap  for  him.  Unless,  therefore,  we  endow  him 
and  make  life  easy  for  him  so  long  as  he  does  his 
proper  work,  he  will  have  either  to  pervert  his  powers 
more  or  less  completely  to  these  irrelevant  ends,  or  if 
his  powers  do  not  admit  of  such  perversion,  he  will 
have  no  use  for  them  whatever.  He  will  take  some 
subordinate  place  in  the  world  as  a  rather  less  than 
average  man  and,  it  may  be,  find  the  leisure  to  give 
just  an  amateurish  ineffectual  expression  of  the  thing 
he  might  have  been. 

Now  this  is  the  case  with  a  great  deal  of  scientific 
and  artistic  work,  and  with  nearly  all  literature  at  the 
present  time,  throughout  the  English-speaking  com- 
munity. There  are  a  few  sciences  slightly  endowed, 
there  are  a  few  arts  patronized  with  some  intelligence 
and  generosity,  and  for  the  rest  there  is  nothing  for  it, 
for  the  man  who  wants  to  do  these  most  necessary  and 
vital  things,  but  to  hammer  some  at  least  of  his  precious 
gold  into  the  semblance  of  a  brass  trumpet  and  to  de- 
vote a  certain  proportion  of  his  time  and  energy  to 
blowing  that  trumpet  and  with  that  air  of  conscious 
modesty  the  public  is  pleased  to  consider  genuine,  pro- 
claiming the  value  of  his  wares.  Some  men  seem  able  to 
do  this  sort  of  thing  without  any  deterioration  in  qual- 
ity and  some  with  only  a  partial  deterioration,  but  the 


Thought  in  the  Modern  State     341 

way  of  self-advertisement  is  on  a  slippery  slope,  and  it 
has  brought  many  a  man  of  indisputable  gifts  to  ab- 
solute vulgarity  and  ineffectiveness  of  thought  and 
work.  At  the  best  it  is  a  shameful  business,  this  noise 
and  display,  for  all  that  Scott  and  Dickens  were  past 
masters  in  the  art.  And  some  men  cannot  do  it  at  all. 
Moreover,  what  the  good  man  may  do  with  an  effort, 
the  energetic  quack,  whose  only  gift  is  simulation,  can 
do  infinitely  better.  It  is  only  in  the  unprofitable 
branches  of  intellectual  work  that  the  best  now  holds 
the  best  positions  unchallenged.  In  the  really  popular 
branches  of  artistic  work  every  honourable  success 
draws  a  parasitic  swarm  of  imitators  like  fish  round 
bread  in  a  pool.  In  the  world  of  thought,  far  more 
than  in  the  world  of  politics,  the  polling  method,  the 
democratic  method  has  broken  down,  the  method  that 
will  only  permit  an  author  to  write — unless  his  subject 
is  one  that  allows  him  to  hold  a  Professorial  Chair — 
on  condition  that  he  can  get  a  publisher  to  induce  the 
public  to  buy  a  certain  minimum  number  of  copies  of 
each  of  his  works,  a  method  that  will  give  him  no 
rest,  once  he  is  in  the  full  swing  of  "production,"  until 
the  end,  no  freedom  to  change  his  style  or  matter,  lest 
he  should  lose  that  paying  following  by  the  transition 
or  the  pause. 

Now  before  we  can  discuss  how  else  we  can  deal 
with  those  who  constitute  the  current  thought  of  the 
community,  we  must  consider  how  we  are  to  distin- 
guish what   is  worth  sustaining   from  what   is  not. 


342  Mankmd  in  the  Making 

This  is  the  pubHc  aspect  of  Criticism.  It  is  the  min- 
eralogy of  literature  and  art.  At  present  Criticism,  as 
a  public  function,  is  discharged  by  private  persons,  usu- 
ally anonymous  and  frequently  mysterious,  and  it  is 
discharged  with  an  astonishing  ineffectiveness.  No- 
where in  the  whole  English-speaking  world  is  there 
anything  one  can  compare  to  a  voice  and  a  judgment — 
much  less  any  discussion  between  reputable  voices. 
There  are  periodicals  professing  criticism,  but  most 
of  them  have  the  effect  of  an  omnibus  in  which  dis- 
connected heterogeneous  people  are  continually  coming 
and  going,  while  the  conductor  asks  first  one  of  his 
fluctuating  load  and  then  another  haphazard  for  an 
opinion  on  this  or  that.  The  branch  of  literature  that 
has  first  to  be  put  on  a  sound  footing  is  critical  litera- 
ture. The  organization  into  efficiency  of  the  criticism 
of  contemporary  work  one  is  forced  to  believe  an  al- 
most necessary  preliminary  to  the  hopeful  treatment 
of  the  rest  of  the  current  of  thought. 

There  is,  of  course,  also  the  suggestion  that  an  Eng- 
lish Academy  of  Letters  might  be  of  great  service  in 
discounting  vulgar  "successes"  and  directing  respect 
and  attention  to  literary  achievements.  One  may 
doubt  whether  such  an  Academy  as  a  Royal  Charter 
would  give  the  world  would  be  of  any  service  at  all  in 
this  connection.  But  Mr.  Herbert  Trench  has  sug- 
gested recently  that  it  might  be  possible  to  organize 
a  large  Guild  of  literary  men  and  women,  which  would 
include  all  capable  writers,  and  from  which  a  sort  of 


Thought  in  the  Modern  State     343 

Academy  could  be  elected,  either  by  a  general  poll  or, 
I  would  suggest,  by  a  Jury  of  Election  or  successive 
Juries  confirming  one  another.  The  New  Republican 
would  like  to  see  such  a  Guild  not  purely  English,  but 
Anglo-American,  or  in  duplicate  for  the  two  countries. 
With  a  very  carefully  chosen  nucleus  and  some  little 
elaboration  in  the  admission  of  new  members — whose 
works  might  be  submitted  to  the  report  of  a  critical 
jury — such  a  Guild  might  be  made  fairly  representa- 
tive of  literary  capacity.  Election,  one  may  suggest, 
should  be  involuntary.  There  would  be  a  number  of 
literary  men,  one  fears — great  men  some  of  them — 
who  would  absolutely  refuse  to  work  with  any  such 
body,  and  from  the  first  the  Guild  would  have  to  de- 
termine to  make  such  men  unwilling  members,  mem- 
bers to  whom  all  the  honours  and  privileges  of  the 
Guild  would  be  open  whenever  they  chose  to  abandon 
their  attitude  of  scorn  or  distrust.  Such  a  Guild  would 
furnish  a  useful  constituency,  a  useful  jury-list.  It 
could  be  used  to  recommend  writers  for  honours,  to 
check  the  distribution  of  public  pensions  for  literary 
services,  perhaps  even  to  send  a  member  or  so  to  the 
Upper  Chamber.  ...  It  is,  at  any  rate,  an  experi- 
ment worth  trying. 

But  such  a  Guild  at  best  is  only  one  of  many  pos- 
sible expedients  in  this  matter.  Another  is  for  a  few 
people  of  means  to  subsidize  a  magazine  for  the  ex- 
haustive criticism  of  contemporary  work  for  a  few 
years.    Quite  a  small  number  of  people,  serious  in  this 


344  Mankind  in  the  Making 

matter,  a  couple  of  thousand  or  so,  could  float  such  a 
magazine  by  the  simple  expedient  of  guaranteeing 
subscriptions.^ 

'  It  may  be  suggested  that  among  other  methods  of  putting  the  criti- 
cism of  contemporary  literature  upon  a  better  footing  is  one  that  might 
conceivably  be  made  to  pay  its  own  expenses.  There  is  so  much  room 
for  endowments  nowadays  that  where  one  can  get  at  the  purse  of  the 
general  public  one  should  certainly  prefer  it  to  that  of  the  generous 
but  overtaxed  donor.  The  project  would  require  a  strong  endowment, 
but  that  endov^TTient  might  be  of  the  nature  of  a  guarantee  fund,  and 
might  in  the  end  return  unimpaired  to  the  lender.  The  suggestion  is 
the  establishment  of  a  well-planned  and  reasonably  cheap  monthly  or 
weekly  critical  magazine,  written  on  a  level  at  present  unattainable — 
chiefly  because  of  the  low  rate  of  payment  for  all  literary  criticism. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  among  those  who  read  much  among  literary 
and  quasi-literary  periodicals  in  English  that  there  is  a  very  considerable 
amount  of  high  critical  ability  available.  Buried  and  obscured  to  an 
ineffectual  degree  among  much  that  is  formal,  foolish,  and  venial,  there 
b  to  be  found  to-day  a  really  quite  remarkable  number  of  isolated 
reviews,  criticisms  and  articles  in  which  style  is  apparent,  in  which 
discrimination  shines  fitfully,  in  which  there  is  the  unmistakable  note 
of  honest  enthusiasm  for  good  work.  For  the  most  part,  such  criticism 
bears  also  the  marks  of  haste — as,  indeed,  it  must  do  when  a  review 
as  long  as  the  column  of  a  daily  paper,  a  day's  work,  that  is,  of  steady 
writing,  earns  scarcely  a  pound.  But  the  stuff  is  there.  Scarcely  a 
number  of  the  Academy,  or  the  Spectator,  scarcely  a  week  of  the  Morning 
Post,  the  Daily  News,  or  the  Daily  Chronicle,  but  there  is  a  review,  or 
a  piece  of  a  review,  that  has  the  stigmata  of  literature.  And  this  sug- 
gestion is  that  some  of  these  vmters  shall  be  got  together,  shall  be  paid 
at  least  as  well  as  popular  short -story  writers  are  paid,  shall  each  have  a 
definite  department  marked  out  under  a  trustworthy  editor,  and  be 
pledged  to  limit  their  work  to  the  pages  of  this  new  critical  magazine. 
Their  work  would  be  signed,  and  there  they  would  be,  conspicuously 
urged  to  do  the  best  that  was  in  them,  apropos  of  more  or  less  contem- 
porary books  and  writers.  They  would  have  leisure  for  deliberate  judg- 
ments, for  the  development  of  that  consistency  of  thought  which  the 
condition   of   journalism   renders   so   impossible.     This   review   would 


Thought  in  the  Modern  State      345 

Then  it  should  also  be  possible  to  endow  univer- 
sity lectureships  and  readerships  in  contemporary 
criticism,  lectureships  and  readerships  in  which 
questions  of  style  and  method  could  be  illustrated  by 
quotation  (not  necessarily  of  a  flattering  sort)  from 
contemporary  work.  Why  should  there  not  be  an 
endowment  which  would  enable  a  man  of  indisputable 
critical  capacity  to  talk  through  an  illuminating 
course,  to  sit  before  a  little  pile  of  marked  books 
and  reading  sometimes  here  and  sometimes  there 
and  talking  between,  to  distinguish  the  evil  from  the 
good?  What  a  wholesome  thing  to  have  Mr.  Henley, 
for  example,  at  that  in  the  place  of  some  of  the 
several  speciaHsts  who  will  lecture  you  so  admirably 
on    the    Troubadours!      How    good    to    hear    Mr. 

mean  for  them  status,  reputation,  and  opportunity.  They  would  deal 
with  contemporary  fiction,  with  contemporary  speculative  literature, 
and  with  the  style,  logic,  methods  and  vocabulary  of  scientific  and 
philosophical  writers.  Their  work  would  form  the  mass  of  the  maga- 
zine, but  there  would  also  be  (highly  paid)  occasional  writers,  towards 
whose  opinions  the  regular  staff  would  very  carefully  define  their  attitude. 
The  project,  of  course,  in  foolish  hands,  might  be  very  foolishly  misin- 
terpreted. It  might  be  quite  easy  to  drive  a  team  of  egregious  asses 
in  this  way  over  contemporary  work,  leaving  nothing  but  hoof-marks 
and  injuries,  but  we  are  assuming  the  thing  to  be  efficiently  done.  It 
is  submitted  that  such  a  magazine,  patiently  and  generously  sustained 
for  a  few  years,  would  at  last  probably  come  to  pay  its  way.  Unless 
the  original  selection  of  the  staff  was  badly  done,  it  would  by  sheer  per- 
sistent high  quality  win  its  way  to  authority  \vith  the  reading  public, 
and  so  fill  its  covers  with  a  swelling  mass  of  advertisement  pages.  .\nd 
once  it  paid,  then  forthwith  a  dozen  rivals  would  be  in  the  field,  all 
of  them,  of  course,  also  paj'ing  highly  for  critical  matter  and  competing 
for  critics  of  standing.  Such  an  enterprise  would  be  a  lever  for  criti- 
cism through  the  whole  of  our  literary  world. 


346  Mankind  in  the  Making 

Frederic  Harrison  (with  some  one  to  follow)  adjust- 
ing all  our  living  efforts  to  the  scale  of  the  divine 
Comte,  and  Mr.  Walkley  and  Mr.  Herbert  Paul 
making  it  perfectly  clear  that  a  dead  dog  is  better 
than  a  living  lion,  by  demonstrations  on  the  lion. 
Criticism  to-day  is  all  too  much  in  the  case  of  that 
doctor  whose  practice  was  deadly,  indeed,  but  his 
post-mortems  admirable!  No  doubt  such  lectures 
would  consist  at  times  of  highly  contentious  matter, 
but  what  of  that?  There  could  be  several  chairs.  It 
would  not  be  an  impossible  thing  to  set  a  few  Exten- 
sion Lecturers  afloat  upon  the  same  channel.  We 
have  now  numerous  courses  of  lectures  on  the  Eliza- 
bethan Dramatists  and  the  evolution  of  the  Miracle 
Play,  and  the  people  who  listen  to  this  sort  of  thing 
will  depart  straight  away  to  recreate  their  souls  in 
the  latest  triumph  of  vehement  bookselling.  Why 
not  base  the  literary  education  of  people  upon  the 
literature  they  read  instead  of  upon  literature  that 
they  are  scarcely  more  in  touch  with  than  with 
Chinese  metaphysics?  A  few  carefully  chosen  pages 
of  contemporary  rubbish,  read  with  a  running  com- 
ment, a  few  carefully  chosen  pages  of  what  is,  com- 
paratively, not  rubbish,  a  little  lucid  discussion  of 
effects  and  probabilities,  would  do  more  to  quicken 
the  literary  sense  of  the  average  person  than  all  the 
sham  enthusiasm  about  Marlowe  and  Spenser  that 
was  ever  concocted.  There  are  not  a  few  authors 
who  would  be  greatly  the  better  and  might  even  be 
subsequently  grateful  for  a  lecture  upon  themselves 


Thought  in  the  Modern  State      347 

in  this  style.  Let  no  one  say  from  this  that  the 
classics  of  our  tongue  are  depreciated  here.  But  the 
point  is,  that  for  people  who  know  Httle  of  history, 
little  of  our  language,  whose  only  habitual  reading  is 
the  newspaper,  the  popular  novel,  and  the  sixpenny 
magazine,  to  plunge  into  the  study  of  works  written 
in  the  language  of  a  different  period,  crowded  with 
obsolete  allusions,  and  saturated  with  obsolete  ideas 
and  extinct  ways  of  thinking,  is  pretentious  and  un- 
profitable, and  that  most  of  such  Extension  Lecturing 
is  fruitless  and  absurd.  And  I  appeal  to  these  two 
facts  in  confirmation,  to  the  thousands  of  people  who 
every  year  listen  to  such  lectures  and  to  the  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  copies  of  our  national  classics 
sold  by  the  booksellers,  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the 
other  to  the  absolute  incapacity  of  our  public  to  judge 
any  new  literary  thing  or  to  protect  itself  in  any  way 
from  violently  and  vulgarly  boomed  rubbish  of  the 
tawdriest  description.  Without  a  real  and  popular 
criticism  of  contemporary  work  as  a  preliminary  and 
basis,  the  criticism  and  circulation  of  the  classics  is 
quite  manifestly  vain. 

By  such  expedients  very  much  might  be  done  for 
the  literary  atmosphere.  By  endowing  a  critical 
review  or  so,  by  endowing  a  few  chairs  and  reader- 
ships in  contemporary  criticism,  by  organizing  a 
Guild  of  Literature  and  a  system  of  exemplary 
honours  for  literature,  by  stimulating  the  general 
discussion  of  contemporary  work  through  lectures 
and  articles,  criticism  could,  I  believe,  be  made  "worth 


348  Mankind  in  the  Making 

while"  to  an  extent  that  is  now  scarcely  imaginable, 
and  there  might  be  created  an  atmosphere  of  atten- 
tion, appreciation,  and  judgment  that  would  be  in 
itself  extraordinarily  stimulating  to  all  forms  of 
literary  effort.  Of  course  all  this  sort  of  thing  may 
be  done  cheaply,  stupidly,  dishonestly,  and  vulgarly, 
and  one  imagines  the  shy  and  exquisite  type  of  mind 
recoiling  from  the  rude  sanity  of  these  suggestions. 
But,  indeed,  they  need  not  be  done  any  other  way 
than  finely  and  well.  People  whose  conception  of 
what  is  good  in  art  and  literature  is  inseparable  from 
rarity  ought,  I  submit,  to  collect  stamps.  At  an 
earlier  phase  in  this  series  of  discussions  there  was 
broached  a  project  for  an  English  Language  Society, 
which  would  set  itself  to  do  or  get  done  a  number  of 
services  necessary  to  the  teaching  and  extension  of 
the  language  of  our  universal  peoples.  With  such  a 
Society  those  who  undertook  this  project  for  the 
habilitation  of  criticism  would  necessarily  co-operate 
and  interlock. 

It  is  upon  this  basis  of  an  organized  criticism  and 
of  a  well-taught  and  cherished  language  that  the 
English  literature  of  the  Twentieth  Century,  the 
literature  of  analysis  and  research,  and  the  literature 
of  creative  imagination,  has  to  stand.  Upon  such 
a  basis  it  becomes  possible  to  consider  the  practica- 
bility of  the  endowment  of  general  literature.  For 
to  that  at  last  we  come.  I  submit  that  it  is  only  by 
the  payment  of  authors,  and  if  necessary  their  endow- 
ment in  a  spacious  manner,  and  in  particular  by  the 


Thought  in  the  Modern  State     349 

entire  separation  of  the  rewards  of  writing  from  the 
accidents  of  the  book  market,  that  the  function  of 
literature  can  be  adequately  discharged  in  the  modern 
state.  The  laws  of  supply  and  demand  break  down 
altogether  in  this  case.  We  have  to  devise  some 
means  of  sustaining  those  who  discharge  this  neces- 
sary public  function  in  the  progressive  state. 

There  are  several  general  propositions  in  this 
matter  that  it  may  be  worth  while  to  state  at  this 
point.  The  first  is  that  both  scientific  generalization 
and  literature  proper  have  been  and  are  and  must 
continue  to  be  the  product  of  a  quite  exceptionally 
heterogeneous  aggregation  of  persons.  They  are 
persons  of  the  most  various  temperaments,  of  the 
most  varied  lop-sidedness,  of  the  most  various  special 
gifts,  and  the  most  various  social  origins,  having  only 
this  in  common,  the  ability  to  add  to  the  current  of 
the  world's  thought.  They  are  not  to  be  dealt  with 
as  though  they  were  a  class  of  persons  all  of  excep- 
tional general  intelligence,  of  exceptional  strength 
of  character,  or  of  exceptional  sanity.  To  do  that, 
would  be  to  hand  over  literature  from  the  man  of 
genius  to  the  man  of  talent.  A  single  method  of 
selection,  help,  honour,  and  payment,  measurement 
by  one  general  standard  cannot,  therefore,  be  ac- 
cepted as  a  solution.  There  must  not  be  any  one 
single  central  body,  any  authoritative  single  control, 
for  such  a  body  or  authority  would  inevitably  de- 
velop a  "character"  in  its  activity  and  greet  with 
especial  favour  (or  with  especial  disfavour)  certain 


350  Mankind  in  the  Making 

types.  In  this  case,  at  any  rate,  organization  is  not 
centralization,  and  it  is  also  not  uniformity.  The 
proposition  may  indeed  be  thrown  out  that  the 
principle  of  Many  Channels  (a  principle  involving  the 
repudiation  both  of  the  monarchical  and  the  demo- 
cratic idea)  is  an  essential  one  to  go  upon  in  all 
questions  of  honour  and  promotion  in  the  modern 
state.  And  not  only  Many  Channels,  but  Many 
Methods.  Whatever  the  value  of  that  as  a  universally 
valuable  proposition,  it  certainly  applies  here. 

And  next  we  may  suggest  that  we  must  take 
great  care  that  we  pay  for  the  thing  we  need  and 
not  for  some  subsidiary  qualification  of  less  value. 
The  reward  must  be  directly  related  to  the  work, 
and  independent  of  all  secondary  considerations.  It 
must  have  no  taint  of  charity.  The  recipient  must 
not  have  to  show  that  he  is  in  want.  Because  a 
writer  or  investigator  is  a  sober,  careful  body  and 
quite  solvent  in  a  modest  way,  that  is  no  reason 
why  we  should  not  pay  him  stimulatingly  for  his 
valuable  contributions  to  the  general  mind,  or  because 
he  is  a  shiftless  seeker  of  misfortunes,  why  we  should 
pay  him  in  excess.  But  pay  him  anyhow.  Almost 
scandalous  private  immorality,  I  submit,  should  not 
bar  the  literary  worker  from  his  pay  any  more  than 
it  justifies  our  stealing  his  boots.  We  must  deal  with 
immorality  as  immorality,  and  with  work  as  work. 
Above  all,  at  the  present  time,  we  must  keep  clearly 
in  view  that  popularity  has  no  relation  to  literary, 
philosophic  or  scientific  value,  it  neither  justifies  nor 


Thought  in  the  Modern  State      351 

condemns.  At  present,  except  in  the  case  of  certain 
forms  of  research  and  in  relation  to  the  altogether 
too  charitable-looking  British  Civil  List,  we  make 
popularity  the  sole  standard  by  which  a  writer  may 
be  paid.  The  novehst,  for  example,  gets  an  income 
extraordinarily  made  up  of  sums  of  from  sixpence  to 
two  shillings  per  person  sufficiently  interested  to  buy 
his  or  her  books.  The  result  is  entirely  independent  of 
real  literary  merit.  The  sixpences  and  shillings  are,  of 
course,  greatly  coveted,  and  success  in  getting  them 
on  anything  like  a  magnificent  scale  makes  a  writer, 
good  or  bad,  vehemently  hated  and  abused,  but  the 
hatred  and  abuse — unaccompanied  as  they  are  by  any 
proposals  for  amelioration — are  hardly  less  silly  than 
the  system.  And  for  our  present  purpose  it  really 
does  not  matter  if  the  fortunate  persons  who  interest 
the  great  public  are  or  are  not  overpaid.  Our  concern 
is  with  the  underpaid,  and  with  all  this  afTair  of 
mammoth  editions  and  booming  only  as  it  afifects 
that  aspect.  We  are  concerned  with  the  exceptional 
man's  necessities  and  not  with  his  luxuries.  The  fly 
of  envy  in  the  True  Artist's  ointment  may,  I  think, 
very  well  stop  there  until  magnanimity  becomes 
something  more  of  a  cult  in  the  literary  and  artistic 
worlds  than  it  is  at  the  present  time.  .   .  . 

This,  perhaps,  is  something  of  a  digression  from 
our  second  general  proposition,  that  we  must  pay 
directly  for  the  work  itself.  But  it  leads  to  a  third 
proposition.  The  whole  history  of  literature  and 
science  abundantly  shows  that  no  critical  judgment 


352  Mankind  in  the  Making 

is  more  than  an  approximation  to  the  truth.  Criti- 
cism should  be  equal  to  the  exposure  of  the  imitator 
and  the  pure  sham,  of  course,  it  should  be  able  to 
analyze  and  expose  these  types,  but  above  that  level 
is  the  disputed  case.  At  the  present  time  in  England 
only  a  very  few  writers  or  investigators  hold  high 
positions  by  anything  approaching  the  unanimous 
verdict  of  the  intelligent  public — of  that  section  of 
the  public  that  counts.  In  the  department  of  fiction, 
for  example,  there  is  a  very  audible  little  minority 
against  Mr.  Kipling,  and  about  Mr.  George  Moore 
or  Mr.  Zangwill  or  Mr.  Barrie  one  may  hear  the 
most  diverse  opinions.  By  the  test  of  blackballing, 
only  the  unknown  would  survive.  The  valuation 
is  as  erratic  in  many  branches  of  science.  The  devel- 
opment of  criticism  will  diminish,  but  it  certainly  will 
not  end,  this  sort  of  thing,  and  since  our  concern  is 
to  stimulate  rather  than  punish,  we  must  do  just 
exactly  what  we  should  not  do  if  we  were  electing 
men  for  a  club,  we  must  include  rather  than  exclude. 
I  am  told  that  Americans  remark  in  relation  to  Uni- 
versity endowments,  "we  speculate  in  research,"  and 
that  will  serve  for  only  a  slight  exaggeration  of  this 
third  proposition.  So  long  as  we  get  most  of  the 
men  of  exceptional  mental  gifts  in  the  community 
under  the  best  conditions  for  their  work,  it  scarcely 
matters  if,  for  each  one  of  them,  we  get  four  or  five 
shams  or  mere  respectabilities  upon  our  hands.  Re- 
spectabiHties  and  shams  have  a  fatal  facility  for  living 
on  the  community  anyhow,  and  there  is  no  more 


Thought  in  the  Modern  State      353 

reason  in  not  doing  these  things  on  their  account 
than  there  would  be  in  burning  a  house  down  to  get 
rid  of  cockroaches  and  rats.  The  rat  poison  of  sound 
criticism — to  follow  that  analogy — is  the  remedy 
here.  And  if  the  respectability  lives,  his  work  at  any 
rate  dies. 

But  if  the  reward  must  be  directly  for  the  work, 
it  must  not  have  any  quantitative  relation  to  the  out- 
put of  work.  It  is  quality  we  want,  not  quantity; 
we  want  absolutely  to  invert  the  abominable  condi- 
tions of  the  present  time  by  which  every  exercise  of 
restraint  costs  an  author  a  fine.  It  is  my  personal 
conviction  that  almost  every  well-known  living  writer 
is  or  has  been  writing  too  much.  "No  book,  no 
income"  is  practically  what  the  world  says  to  an 
author,  and  the  needy  authors  make  a  pace  the 
independent  follow;  there  is  no  respect  for  fine 
silences,  if  you  cease  you  are  forgotten.  The  litera- 
ure  of  the  past  hundred  years  is  unparalleled  in  the 
world's  history  in  this  feature  that  the  greater  portion 
of  it  is  or  has  been  written  under  pressure.  It  was 
the  case  with  Scott,  the  case  with  Dickens,  Tennyson, 
even  with  Browning,  and  a  host  of  other  great 
contributors  to  the  edifice.  No  one  who  loves 
Dickens  and  knows  anything  of  the  art  he  practised 
but  deplores  that  evil  incessant  demand  that  never 
permitted  him  to  revise  his  plans,  to  alter,  rearrange 
and  concentrate,  that  never  released  him  from  the 
obligation  to  touch  dull  hearts  and  penetrate  thick 
skins  with  obtrusive  pathos  and  violent  caricature. 


354  Mankind  in  the  Making 

Once  embarked  upon  his  course,  he  never  had  a 
moment  for  reconstruction.  He  had  no  time  to  read, 
no  time  to  think.  A  writer  nowadays  has  to  think 
in  books  and  articles;  to  read  a  book  he  must 
criticize  or  edit  it;  if  he  dare  attempt  an  experiment, 
a  new  departure,  comes  his  agent  in  a  panic.  Every 
departure  from  the  Hnes  of  his  previous  success  in- 
volves chaffering,  unless  he  chance  to  be  a  man  of 
independent  means.  When  one  reflects  on  these 
things  it  is  only  amazing  that  the  average  book  is  not 
more  copious  and  crude  and  hasty  than  it  is,  and  how 
much  in  the  way  of  comprehensive  and  unifying  work 
is  even  now  in  progress.  There  are  all  too  many 
books  to  read.  It  would  be  better  for  the  public, 
better  for  our  literature,  altogether  better,  if  this  obli- 
gation to  write  perpetually  were  lifted.  Few  writers 
but  must  have  felt  at  times  the  desire  to  stop  and 
think,  to  work  out  some  neglected  corner  of  their 
minds,  to  admit  a  year's  work  as  futile  and  thrust  it 
behind  the  fire,  or  simply  to  lie  fallow,  to  camp  and 
rest  the  horses.  Let  us,  therefore,  pay  our  authors  as 
much  not  to  write  as  though  they  wrote;  instead  of 
that  twenty  or  thirty  volumes,  which  is,  I  suppose, 
the  average  product,  let  us  require  a  book  or  so,  worth 
having.  Which  means,  in  fact,  that  we  must  find  some 
way  of  giving  an  author,  once  he  has  proved  his 
quality,  a  fixed  income  quite  irrespective  of  what  he 
does.  We  might,  perhaps,  require  evidence  that  he 
was  doing  some  work  now  and  then,  we  might  pro- 
hibit alien  occupations,  but  for  my  own  part  I  do  not 


Thought  in  the  Modern  State      355 

think  even  that  is  necessary.  Most  authors  so  sus- 
tained will  write,  and  all  will  have  written.  We  are 
presupposing,  be  it  remembered,  the  stimulus  of 
honours  and  criticism  and  of  further  honours  and 
further  emoluments. 

Finally,  in  making  schemes  for  the  endowment  of 
original  mental  activity,  we  must  not  ignore  the 
possibility  of  a  perversion  that  has  already  played 
its  part  in  the  histories  of  painting  and  music,  and 
that  is  the  speculative  financing  of  promising  candi- 
dates for  these  endowments.  If  we  are  going  to  make 
research,  criticism,  and  creation  "worth  while"  we 
must  see  to  it  that  in  reality  we  are  not  simply 
making  it  worth  while  for  Solomons  and  Moses  to 
"spot"  the  early  promise,  to  stimulate  its  modesty, 
to  help  it  to  its  position,  and  to  draw  the  major 
profits  of  the  enterprise.  The  struggling  young  man 
of  exceptional  gifts  who  is  using  his  brains  not  to 
make  his  position  but  to  do  his  destined  work,  is  by 
that  at  a  great  disadvantage  in  dealing  with  the 
business  man,  and  it  is  to  the  interest  of  the  com- 
munity that  he  should  be  protected  from  his  own 
inexperience  and  his  own  self-distrust.  The  average 
Whitechapel  Jew  could  cheat  a  Shakespeare  into  the 
workhouse  in  no  time,  and  our  idea  is  rather  to  make 
the  world  easy  for  Shakespeares  than  to  hand 
it  over  to  the  rat  activities  of  the  "smart"  business 
man.  .  .  . 

Freedom  of  Contract  is  an  idea  no  one  outside  a 
debating  society  dreams   of  reaHzing  in  the  state. 


356  Mankind  in  the  Making 

We  protect  tenants  from  landlords  in  all  sorts  of 
ways,  our  law  overrides  all  sorts  of  bargains,  and  in 
the  important  case  of  marriage  we  put  almost  all  the 
conditions  outside  bargaining  and  speculative  meth- 
ods altogether  by  insisting  upon  one  universal 
contract  or  none.  We  protect  women  who  are 
physically  and  economically  weak  in  this  manner, 
not  so  much  for  their  own  good  as  the  good  of  the 
race.  The  state  already  puts  literary  property  into 
a  class  apart  by  Hmiting  its  duration.  At  a  certain 
point,  which  varies  in  different  circumstances,  copy- 
right expires.  It  is  possible  for  an  author,  whose 
fame  comes  late,  to  be  present  as  a  row  of  dainty 
volumes  in  half  the  comfortable  homes  in  the  world, 
while  his  grandchildren  beg  their  bread.  The  author's 
blood  is  sacrificed  to  the  need  the  whole  world  has 
of  cheap  access  to  his  work.  And  since  we  do  him 
this  injury  for  the  sake  of  our  intellectual  life,  it  is 
surely  not  unreasonable  to  interfere  for  his  benefit 
also  if  that  subserves  the  greater  end. 

Now  there  are  two  ways  at  least  in  which  the 
author  may  be  and  should  be  protected  from  the 
pressure  of  immediate  necessities.  The  first  of  these 
is  to  render  his  copyright  in  his  work  inalienably 
his,  to  forbid  him  to  make  any  bargain  by  which  the 
right  to  revise,  abbreviate,  or  alter  what  he  has 
written  passes  out  of  his  hands,  and  to  make  every 
such  bargain  invalid.  He  would  be  free  himself  to 
alter  or  to  endorse  alterations,  but  to  yield  no  carte 
hlanche  to  others.     He  would  be  free  also  to  make 


Thought  in  the  Modern  State      357 

whatever  bargain  he  chose  for  the  rights  of  publica- 
tion. But,  and  this  is  the  second  proposal,  no  bargain 
he  made  should  be  vaHd  for  a  longer  period  than 
seven  years  from  the  date  of  its  making.  Every 
seven  years  his  book  would  come  back  into  his 
control,  to  suppress,  revise,  resell,  or  do  whatever  he 
Hked  to  do  with  it.  Only  in  one  way  could  he 
escape  this  property,  and  that  would  be  by  declaring 
it  void  and  making  his  copyright  an  immediate 
present  to  the  world.  And  upon  this  proposal  it 
is  possible  to  base  one  form — and  a  very  excellent 
form — of  paying  for  the  public  service  of  good 
writing  and  so  honouring  men  of  letters  and  thought, 
and  that  is  by  buying  and,  more  or  less,  completely 
extinguishing  their  copyrights,  and  so  converting 
them  into  contemporary  classics. 

Throughout  these  papers  a  disposition  to  become 
concrete  has  played  unchecked.  Always  definite 
proposals  have  been  preferred  to  vague  generaliza- 
tions, and  here  again  it  will  be  convenient  to  throw 
out  an  almost  detailed  scheme — simply  as  an  illustra- 
tion of  the  possibilities  of  the  case.  I  am  going  to 
suggest  to  the  reader  that  to  endow  a  thousand  or  so 
authors,  as  authors,  would  be  a  most  wise  and  admir- 
able proceeding  for  a  modern  statesman,  and  I  would 
ask  him  before  he  dismisses  this  suggestion  as  absurd 
and  impossible,  to  rest  contented  with  no  vague 
rejection  but  to  put  to  himself  clearly  why  the  thing 
should  under  present  conditions  be  absurd  and  im- 
possible.   Always  in  the  past  the  need  of  some  organ 


358  Mankind  in  the  Making 

for  the  establishment  and  preservation  of  a  common 
tone  and  substance  of  thought  in  the  state  has  been 
recognized;  commonly  this  organ  has  taken  the  form 
of  a  Church,  a  group  of  Churches  (as  in  America) 
or  an  educational  system  (as  in  China).  But  all 
previous  schemes  of  social  and  political  organization 
have  been  static,  have  aimed  at  a  permanent  state. 
Our  modern  state  we  know  can  only  live  by  adapta- 
tion, and  we  have  to  provide  not  a  permanent  but  a 
developing  social,  moral  and  poHtical  culture.  Our 
new  scheme  must  include  not  only  priests  and  teach- 
ers but  prophets  and  seekers.  Literature  is  a  vitally 
necessary  function  of  the  modern  state. 

Let  us  waive  for  the  moment  the  subtle  difficulty 
that  arises  when  we  ask  who  are  the  writers  of  liter- 
ature, the  guides  and  makers  of  opinion,  the  men 
and  women  of  wisdom,  insight,  and  creation,  as 
distinguished  from  those  who  merely  resonate  to  the 
note  of  the  popular  mind;  let  us  assume  that  this  is 
determined,  and  let  us  make  a  scheme  in  the  air  to 
support  these  people  under  such  conditions  as  will 
give  us  their  best.  Suppose  the  thing  done  boldly, 
and  that  for  every  hundred  thousand  people  in  our 
population  we  subsidize  an  author — if  we  can  find  as 
many.  Suppose  we  give  him  some  sort  of  honour  or 
title  and  the  alternative  of  going  on  writing  under 
copyright  conditions — which  many  popular  favourites 
would  certainly  prefer — or  of  giving  up  his  copyrights 
to  the  pubUc  and  receiving  a  fixed  income,  a  respect- 
able mediocre  income,  £800  or  £1000  for  example. 


Thought  in  the  Modern  State      359 

That  means  four  hundred  or  more  subsidized  authors 
for  Great  Britain,  which  would  work  out,  perhaps,  as 
eighteen  or  twenty  every  year,  and  a  proportionate 
number  for  America  and  the  Colonial  States  of  the 
British  Empire.  Suppose,  further,  that  from  this 
general  body  of  authors  we  draw  every  year  four  or 
five  of  the  seniors  to  form  a  sort  of  Academy,  a 
higher  stage  of  honour  and  income;  this  would 
probably  give  something  under  a  hundred  on  this 
higher  stage.  Taking  the  income  of  the  two  stages 
as  £1000  and  £2000  respectively,  this  would  work 
out  at  about  £500,000  a  year  for  Great  Britain — a 
quite  trivial  addition  to  what  is  already  spent  on 
educational  work.  A  scheme  that  would  provide  for 
widows  and  children  whose  education  was  unfinished, 
and  for  the  official  printing  and  sale  of  correct  texts 
of  the  books  written,  would  still  fall  within  the  dimen- 
sions of  a  milHon  pounds.  I  am  assuming  this  will 
be  done  quite  in  addition  to  the  natural  growth  of 
Universities  and  Colleges,  to  the  evolution  of  great 
text-books  and  criticism,  and  to  the  organization  and 
publication  of  special  research  in  science  and  letters. 
This  is  to  be  an  endowment  specifically  for  un- 
specialized  literature,  for  untechnical  philosophy  that 
is,  and  the  creative  imagination. 

It  must  not  be  imagined  that  such  an  endowment 
would  be  a  new  payment  by  the  community.  In 
all  probability  we  are  already  paying  as  much,  or 
more,  to  authors,  in  the  form  of  royalties,  of  serial 
fees,   and  the  like.    We  are  paying  now  with  an 


360  Mankind  in  the  Making 

unjust  unevenness — we  starve  the  new  and  deep  and 
overpay  the  trite  and  obvious.  Moreover,  the  com- 
munity would  have  something  in  exchange  for  its 
money;  it  would  have  the  copyright  of  the  works 
written.  It  may  be  suggested  that  by  a  very  simple 
device  a  large  proportion  of  these  payments  could  be 
recovered.  Suppose  that  all  books,  whether  copy- 
right or  not,  and  all  periodicals  sold  above  a  certain 
price — sixpence,  let  us  say — had  to  bear  a  defaced 
stamp  of — for  example — a  halfpenny  for  each  shilling 
of  price.  This  would  probably  yield  a  revenue 
almost  sufficient  to  cover  these  literary  pensions.  In 
addition  the  books  of  the  pensioned  authors  might 
bear  an  additional  stamp  as  the  equivalent  of  the 
present  royalty. 

The  annual  selection  of  eighteen  or  twenty  authors 
might  very  well  be  a  dispersed  duty.  One  or  two  each 
might  be  appointed  in  some  way  by  grouped  Univer- 
sities, or  by  three  or  four  of  the  Universities  taken  in 
rotation,  by  such  a  Guild  of  Authors  as  we  have  al- 
ready considered,  by  the  British  Academy  of  History 
and  Philosophy,  by  the  Royal  Society,  by  the  British 
Privy  Council.  The  Jury  system  would  probably  be  of 
very  great  value  in  making  these  appointments. 

That  is  a  rough  sketch  of  a  possible  scheme — pre- 
sented in  the  most  open-minded  way.  It  would  not 
meet  all  conceivable  cases,  so  it  would  need  to  be  sup- 
plemented in  many  directions ;  moreover,  it  is  pre- 
sented with  hideous  crudity,  but  for  all  that,  would 
not  something  of  the  sort  work  well?    How  would  it 


Thought  in  the  Modern  State      361 

work?  There  would  certainly  be  a  great  diminution 
in  the  output  of  written  matter  from  the  thousand  or 
more  recognized  writers  this  would  give  us,  and  al- 
most as  certainly  a  great  rise  in  effort  and  delibera- 
tion, in  distinction,  quality,  and  value  in  their  work. 
This  would  also  appear  in  the  work  of  their  ambitious 
juniors.  Would  it  extinguish  anything?  I  do  not  see 
that  it  would.  Those  who  write  trivially  for  the  pleas- 
ure of  the  public  would  be  just  as  well  off  as  they  are 
now,  and  there  would  be  no  more  difficulty  than  there 
is  at  present  for  those  who  begin  writing.  Less,  in- 
deed; for  the  thousand  subsidized  writers,  at  least, 
would  not  be  clamorously  competing  to  fill  up  mag- 
azines and  libraries ;  they  might  set  a  higher  and  more 
difficult  standard,  but  they  would  leave  more  space 
about  them.  The  thing  would  scarcely  affect  the  de- 
velopment of  publishing  and  book  distribution,  nor  in- 
jure nor  stimulate — except  by  raising  the  standard 
and  ideals  of  writing — newspapers,  magazines,  and 
their  contributors  in  any  way.  .  .  . 

I  do  not  believe  for  one  moment  the  thing  would 
stop  at  such  a  subsidized  body  of  authors,  such  a  little 
aristocracy  of  thought,  as  this  project  presents.  But 
it  would  be  an  efficient  starting-point.  There  are  those 
who  demand  a  thinking  department  for  Army  and 
Navy ;  and  that  idea  admits  of  extension  in  this  direc- 
tion, this  organized  general  literature  of  mine  would 
be  the  thinking  organization  of  the  race.  Once  this  de- 
liberate organization  of  a  central  ganglion  of  interpre- 
tation and  presentation  began,  the  development  of  the 


362  Mankind  in  tJie  Making 

brain  and  nervous  system  in  the  social  body  would  pro- 
ceed apace.  Each  step  made  would  enable  the  next 
step  to  be  wider  and  bolder.  The  general  innervation 
of  society  with  books  and  book  distributing  agencies 
would  be  followed  by  the  linking  up  of  the  now  almost 
isolated  mental  worlds  of  science,  art,  and  political 
and  social  activity  in  a  system  of  intercommunication 
and  sympathy.  ,  .  . 

We  have  now  already  in  the  history  of  the  world 
one  successful  experiment  in  the  correlation  of  human 
endeavour.  Compare  all  that  was  accomplished  in 
material  science  by  the  isolated  work  of  the  great  men 
before  Lord  Verulam,  and  what  has  been  done  since 
the  system  of  isolated  inquiry  gave  place  to  a  free  ex- 
change of  ideas  and  collective  discussion.  And  this  is 
only  one  field  of  mental  activity  and  one  aspect  of 
social  needs.  The  rest  of  the  intellectual  world  is  still 
unorganized.  The  rest  of  the  moral  and  intellectual 
being  of  man  is  dwarfed  and  cowed  by  the  enormous 
disproportionate  development  of  material  science  and 
its  economic  and  social  consequences.  What  if  we  ex- 
tend that  same  spirit  of  organization  and  free  reaction 
to  the  whole  world  of  human  thought  and  emotion? 
That  is  the  greater  question  at  which  this  project  of 
literary  endowment  aims. 

It  may  seem  to  the  reader  that  all  this  insistence 
upon  the  supreme  necessity  for  an  organized  literature 
springs  merely  from  the  obsession  of  a  writer  by  his 
own  calling,  but,  indeed,  that  is  not  so.  We  who  write 
are  not  all  so  blinded  by  conceit  of  ourselves  that  we 


Thought  in  the  Modern  State     363 

do  not  know  something  of  our  absolute  personal  value. 
We  are  lizards  in  an  empty  palace,  frogs  crawling  over 
a  throne.  But  it  is  a  palace,  it  is  a  throne,  and,  it  may 
be,  the  reverberation  of  our  ugly  voices  will  presently 
awaken  the  world  to  put  something  better  in  our 
place.  Because  we  write  abominably  under  pressure 
and  for  unhonoured  bread,  none  the  less  we  are  mak- 
ing the  future.  We  are  making  it  atrociously  no 
doubt;  we  are  not  ignorant  of  that  possibility,  but 
some  of  us,  at  least,  would  like  to  do  it  better.  We 
know  only  too  well  how  that  we  are  out  of  touch  with 
scholarship  and  contemplation.  We  must  drive  our 
pens  to  live  and  push  and  bawl  to  be  heard.  We  must 
blunder  against  men  an  ampler  training  on  either  side 
would  have  made  our  allies,  we  must  smart  and  lose 
our  tempers  and  do  the  foolish  things  that  are  done  in 
the  heat  of  the  day.  For  all  that,  according  to  our 
lights,  we  who  write  are  trying  to  save  our  world  in  a 
lack  of  better  saviours,  to  change  this  mental  tumult 
into  an  order  of  understanding  and  intention  in  which 
great  things  may  grow.  The  thought  of  a  community 
is  the  life  of  that  community,  and  if  the  collective 
thought  of  a  community  is  disconnected  and  frag- 
mentary, then  the  community  is  collectively  vain  and 
weak.  That  does  not  constitute  an  incidental  defect, 
but  essential  failure.  Though  that  community  have 
cities  such  as  the  world  has  never  seen  before,  fleets 
and  hosts  and  glories,  though  it  count  its  soldiers  by 
the  army  corps  and  its  children  by  the  million,  yet  if 
it  hold  not  to  the  reality  of  thought  and  formulated 


364  Mankind  in  the  Making 

will  beneath  these  outward  things,  it  will  pass,  and  all 
its  glories  will  pass,  like  smoke  before  the  wind,  like 
mist  beneath  the  sun ;  it  will  become  at  last  only  one 
more  vague  and  fading  dream  upon  the  scroll  of  time, 
a  heap  of  mounds  and  pointless  history,  even  as  are 
Babylon  and  Nineveh. 


XI 

The  Man's  Own  Share 

In  this  manner  it  is  that  the  initial  proposition  of  New 
Republicanism  works  itself  out.  It  shapes  into  the 
rough  outline  of  an  ideal  new  state,  a  New  Republic, 
a  great  confederation  of  English-speaking  republican 
communities,  each  with  its  non-hereditary  aristocracy, 
scattered  about  the  world,  speaking  a  common  lan- 
guage, possessing  a  common  literature  and  a  common 
scientific  and,  in  its  higher  stages  at  least,  a  common 
educational  organization,  and  it  indicates  in  crude, 
broad  suggestions  the  way  towards  that  state  from 
the  present  condition  of  things.  It  insists  as  a  car- 
dinal necessity,  not  indeed  as  an  end  but  as  an  indis- 
pensable instrument  by  which  this  world  state  must  be 
made  and  sustained,  upon  a  great,  a  contemporary, 
and  a  universally  accessible  literature,  a  literature  not 
simply  of  thought  and  science  but  of  power,  which 
shall  embody  and  make  real  and  living  the  sustaining 
dreams  of  the  coming  time,  and  which  shall  draw  to- 
gether and  bring  into  intelligent  correlation  all  those 
men  and  women  who  are  working  now  discontentedly 
and  wastefully  towards  a  better  order  of  life.  For, 
indeed,  a  great  number  of  men  and  women  are  already 

365 


366  Mankind  in  the  Making 

working  for  this  New  Republic,  working  with  the 
most  varied  powers  and  temperaments  and  formulae, 
to  raise  the  standard  of  housing  and  the  standard  of 
living,  to  enlarge  our  knowledge  of  the  means  by 
which  better  births  may  be  attained,  to  know  more,  to 
educate  better,  to  train  better,  to  write  good  books  for 
teachers,  to  organize  our  schools,  to  make  our  laws 
simpler  and  more  honest,  to  clarify  our  political  life, 
to  test  and  reorganize  all  our  social  rules  and  conven- 
tions, to  adjust  property  to  new  conditions,  to  improve 
our  language,  to  increase  intercourse  of  all  sorts,  to 
give  our  ideals  the  justice  of  a  noble  presentation;  at 
a  thousand  points  the  New  Republic  already  starts  into 
being.  And  while  we  scattered  pioneers  and  experi- 
menters piece  together  our  scattered  efforts  into  a  co- 
herent scheme,  while  we  become  more  and  more 
clearly  conscious  of  our  common  purpose,  year  by  year 
the  old  order  and  those  who  have  anchylosed  to  the 
old  order,  die  and  pass  away,  and  the  unhampered 
children  of  the  new  time  grow  up  about  us. 

In  a  few  years  this  that  I  call  New  Republicanism 
here,  under  I  know  not  what  final  name,  will  have  be- 
come a  great  world  movement  conscious  of  itself  and 
consistent  within  itself,  and  we  who  are  making  now 
the  crude  discovery  of  its  possibility  will  be  working 
towards  its  realization  in  our  thousand  different  ways 
and  positions.  And  coming  to  our  help,  to  reinforce 
us,  to  supersede  us,  to  take  the  growing  task  out  of 
our  hands  will  come  youth,  will  come  our  sons  and 
daughters  and  those  for  whom  we  have  written  our 


The  Mans  Own  Share  367 

books,  for  whom  we  have  taught  in  our  schools,  for 
whom  we  have  founded  and  ordered  Hbraries,  toiled 
in  laboratories,  and  in  waste  places  and  strange  lands ; 
for  whom  we  have  made  saner  and  cleaner  homes  and 
saner  and  cleaner  social  and  political  arrangements, 
foregoing  a  hundred  comfortable  acquiescences  that 
these  things  might  be  done.  Youth  will  come  to  take 
over  the  work  from  us  and  go  on  with  it  in  a  bolder 
and  ampler  manner  than  we  in  these  limited  days  dare 
to  attempt. 

Assuredly  youth  will  come  to  us,  if  this  is  indeed  to 
be  the  dawn  of  a  new  time.  Without  the  high  resolve 
of  youth,  without  the  constant  accession  of  youth, 
without  recuperative  power,  no  sustained  forward 
movement  is  possible  in  the  world.  It  is  to  youth, 
therefore,  that  this  book  is  finally  addressed,  to  the 
adolescents,  to  the  students,  to  those  who  are  yet  in 
the  schools  and  who  will  presently  come  to  read  it,  to 
those  who  being  still  plastic  can  understand  the  infinite 
plasticity  of  the  world.  It  is  those  who  are  yet  unmade 
who  must  become  the  makers.  After  thirty  there  are 
few  conversions  and  fewer  fine  beginnings ;  men  and 
women  go  on  in  the  path  they  have  marked  out  for 
themselves.  Their  imaginations  have  become  firm 
and  rigid  even  if  they  have  not  withered,  and  there  is 
no  turning  them  from  the  conviction  of  their  brief  ex- 
perience that  almost  all  that  is,  is  inexorably  so. 
Accomplished  things  obsess  us  more  and  more.  What 
man  or  woman  over  thirty  in  Great  Britain  dares  to 
hope  for  a  republic  before  it  is  time  to  die?    Yet  the 


368  Mankind  in  the  Making 

thing  might  be.  Or  for  the  reunion  of  the  EngHsh- 
speaking  peoples?  Or  for  the  deliverance  of  all  of 
our  blood  and  speech  from  those  fouler  things  than 
chattel  slavery,  child  and  adolescent  labour?  Or  for 
an  infantile  death-rate  under  ninety  in  the  thousand 
and  all  that  would  mean  in  the  common  life?  These 
and  a  hundred  such  things  are  coming  now,  but  only 
the  young  know  how  near  they  may  be  brought  to  us. 
As  for  us  others,  we  plant  a  tree  never  believing  we 
shall  eat  the  fruit,  we  build  a  house  never  hoping  to 
live  therein.  The  desert,  we  believe  in  our  hearts,  is 
our  home  and  our  destined  grave,  and  whatever  we 
see  of  the  Promised  Land  we  must  see  through  the 
eyes  of  the  young. 

With  each  year  of  their  lives  they  come  more 
distinctly  into  conscious  participation  with  our 
efforts.  Those  soft  little  creatures  that  we  have 
figured  grotesquely  as  dropping  from  an  inexorable 
spout  into  our  world,  those  weak  and  waihng  lumps 
of  pink  flesh  more  helpless  than  any  animal,  for 
whom  we  have  planned  better  care,  a  better  chance 
of  life,  better  conditions  of  all  sorts,  those  laval 
souls  who  are  at  first  helpless  clay  in  our  hands, 
presently  insensibly  have  become  helpers  beside  us 
in  the  struggle.  In  a  little  while  they  are  beautiful 
children,  they  are  boys  and  girls  and  youths  and 
maidens,  full  of  the  zest  of  new  life,  full  of  an  abun- 
dant, joyful  receptivity.  In  a  little  while  they  are 
walking  with  us,  seeking  to  know  whither  we  go,  and 
whither  we  lead  them,  and  why.    Our  account  of  the 


The  Mans  Own  Share  369 

men-makers  is  not  complete  until  we  add  to  birth  and 
school  and  world,  the  increasing  element  of  deliberate 
co-operation  in  the  man  or  woman  we  are  seeking  to 
make.  In  a  little  while  they  are  young  men  and 
women,  and  then  men  and  women,  save  for  a  fresher 
vigour,  like  ourselves.  For  us  it  comes  at  last  to 
fellowship  and  resignation.  For  them  it  comes  at  last 
to  responsibility,  to  freedom,  and  to  introspection  and 
the  searching  of  hearts.  We  must  if  we  would  be  men- 
makers,  as  the  first  and  immediate  part  of  the  business, 
correct  and  finish  ourselves.  The  good  New  Repub- 
lican must  needs  ask  and  ask  repeatedly:  What  have 
I  done  and  what  am  I  doing  with  myself  while 
I  tamper  with  the  lives  of  others?  His  self-examina- 
tion will  be  no  monstrous  egotism  of  perfectibility, 
indeed,  no  virtuosity  of  virtue,  no  exquisite  retreat 
and  slinking  "out  of  the  race,  where  that  immortal 
garland  is  to  be  run  for,  not  without  dust  and  heat." 
But  he  will  seek  perpetually  to  gauge  his  quality, 
he  will  watch  to  see  himself  the  master  of  his  habits 
and  of  his  powers;  he  will  take  his  brain,  blood, 
body,  and  lineage  as  a  trust  to  be  administered  for 
the  world.  To  know  all  one  can  of  one's  self  in 
relation  to  the  world  about  one,  to  think  out  all  one 
can,  to  take  nothing  for  granted  except  by  reason 
of  one's  unavoidable  limitations,  to  be  swift,  indeed, 
but  not  hasty,  to  be  strong  but  not  violent,  to  be  as 
watchful  of  one's  self  as  it  is  given  one  to  be,  is  the 
manifest  duty  of  all  who  would  subserve  the  New 
Republic.    For  the  New  Republican,  as  for  his  fore- 


370  Mankind  in  the  Making 

runner  the  Puritan,  conscience  and  discipline  must 
saturate  life.  He  must  be  ruled  by  duties  and  a 
certain  ritual  in  life.  Every  day  and  every  week  he 
must  set  aside  time  to  read  and  to  think,  to  commune 
with  others  and  himself,  he  must  be  as  jealous  of  his 
health  and  strength  as  the  Levites  of  old.  Can  we 
in  this  generation  make  but  a  few  thousands  of  such 
men  and  women,  men  and  women  who  are  not  afraid 
to  live,  men  and  women  with  a  common  faith  and  a 
common  understanding,  then,  indeed,  our  work  will 
be  done.  They  will  in  their  own  time  take  this  world 
as  a  sculptor  takes  his  marble  and  shape  it  better  than 
all  our  dreams. 


THE   END 


APPENDIX 

A  Paper  on  Administrative  Areas  Read  Before  the 
Fabian  Society  ^ 

Let  me  begin  this  paper  upon  the  question  of  Scientific 
Administrative  areas  in  relation  to  municipal  under- 
takings by  defining  the  sort  of  SociaHsm  I  profess.  Be- 
cause, you  know,  it  is  quite  impossible  to  conceal  that 
there  are  very  many  different  sorts  of  socialism,  and 
your  society  is,  and  has  long  been,  a  remarkably  repre- 
sentative collection  of  the  various  types.  We  have  this 
much  in  common,  however,  that  we  insist  upon  and  ham- 
mer home  and  never  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  Property 
is  a  purely  provisional  and  law-made  thing,  and  that  the 
law  and  the  community  which  has  given  may  also,  at 
its  necessity,  take  away.  The  work  which  the  Socialist 
movement  has  done  is  to  secure  the  general  repudiation 
of  any  idea  of  sacredness  about  property.  But  upon  the 
extent  to  which  it  is  convenient  to  sanction  a  certain 
amount  of  property,  and  the  ways  in  which  existing  ex- 
cesses of  property  are  to  be  reduced,  Socialists  differ 
enormously.  There  are  certain  extreme  expressions  of 
Socialism  that  you  will  connect  with  the  names  of  Owen 

'  I  am  indebted  to  Mr.  E.  R.  Pease  for  some  valuable  corrections. — 
H.  G.  W. 

371 


372  Appendix 

and  Fourier,  and  with  Noyes's  "History  of  American 
Socialism,"  in  which  the  aboHtion  of  monopoly  is  carried 
out  with  logical  completeness  to  the  abolition  of  mar- 
riage, and  in  which  the  idea  seems  to  be  to  extend  the 
limits  of  the  Family  and  of  intimate  intercourse  to  in- 
clude all  humanity.  With  these  Socialisms  I  have 
nothing  in  common.  There  are  a  large  number  of  such 
questions  concerning  the  constitution  of  the  family  upon 
which  I  retain  an  open  and  inquiring  mind,  and  to  which 
I  find  the  answers  of  the  established  order,  if  not 
always  absolutely  incorrect,  at  any  rate  glaringly  incom- 
plete and  totally  inadequate  ;  but  I  do  not  find  the  answers 
of  these  Socialistic  Communities  in  any  degree  more 
satisfactory. 

There  are,  however,  more  limited  Socialisms,  systems 
which  deal  mainly  with  economic  organizations,  which 
recognize  the  rights  of  individuals  to  possessions  of  a 
personal  sort,  and  which  assume  without  detailed  discus- 
sion the  formation  of  family  groups  within  the  general 
community.  There  are  limited  socialisms  whose  repudia- 
tion of  property  aflfects  only  the  common  interests  of  the 
community,  the  land  it  occupies,  the  services  in  which  all 
are  interested,  the  necessary  minimum  of  education,  and 
the  sanitary  and  economic  interaction  of  one  person  or 
family  group  upon  another;  socialisms  which,  in  fact, 
come  into  touch  with  an  intelligent  individualism,  and 
which  are  based  on  the  attempt  to  ensure  equality  of 
opportunity  and  freedom  for  complete  individual  devel- 
opment to  every  citizen.  Such  socialists  look  not  so 
much  to  the  abolition  of  property  as  to  the  abolition  of 


Appendix  373 

inheritance,  and  to  the  intelHgent  taxation  of  property 
for  the  services  of  the  community.  It  is  among  such 
moderate  socialists  that  I  would  number  myself.  I  would 
make  no  hard  and  fast  rule  with  regard  to  any  portion  of 
the  material  and  apparatus  used  in  the  service  of  a  com- 
munity. With  regard  to  any  particular  service  or  con- 
cern, I  would  ask,  Is  it  more  convenient,  more  likely  to 
lead  to  economy  and  efficiency,  to  let  this  service  rest 
in  the  hands  of  some  single  person  or  group  of  persons 
who  may  offer  to  do  the  service  or  administer  the  con- 
cern, and  whom  we  will  call  the  owners,  or  to  place  it 
in  the  hands  of  some  single  person  or  group  of  persons, 
elected  or  chosen  by  lot,  whom  we  will  call  the  official 
or  group  of  officials?  And  if  you  were  to  suggest  some 
method  of  election  that  would  produce  officials  that,  on 
the  whole,  were  likely  to  manage  worse  than  private 
owners,  and  to  waste  more  than  the  private  owner's 
probable  profits,  I  should  say  then  by  all  means  leave  the 
service  or  concern  in  private  hands. 

You  see  upon  this  principle  the  whole  question  of  the 
administration  of  any  affair  turns  upon  the  question, 
Which  will  give  the  maximum  efficiency?  It  is  very 
easy  to  say,  and  it  stirs  the  heart  and  produces  cheering 
in  crowded  meetings  to  say,  "  Let  everything  be  owned 
by  all  and  controlled  by  all  for  the  good  of  all,"  and  for 
the  general  purposes  of  a  meeting  it  is  quite  possible  to 
say  that  and  nothing  more.  But  if  you  sit  down  quietly 
by  yourself  afterwards  and  try  and  imagine  things  being 
"  owned  by  all  and  controlled  by  all  for  the  good  of  all," 
you  will  presently  arrive  at  the  valuable   discovery  in 


374  Appendix 

social  and  political  science  that  the  phrase  means  nothing- 
whatever.  It  is  also  very  striking,  on  such  rhetorical 
occasions,  to  oppose  the  private  owner  to  the  community 
or  the  state  or  the  municipality,  and  to  suppose  all  the 
vices  of  humanity  concentrated  in  private  ownership, 
and  all  the  virtues  of  humanity  concentrated  in  the  com- 
munity, but  indeed  that  clear  and  striking  contrast  will 
not  stand  the  rough-and-tumble  of  the  workaday  world. 
A  little  examination  of  the  matter  will  make  it  clear 
that  the  contrast  lies  between  private  owners  and  public 
officials — you  must  have  officials,  because  you  can't  settle 
a  railway  time-table  or  make  a  bridge  by  public  acclama- 
tion— and  even  there  you  will  find  it  is  not  a  simple  ques- 
tion of  the  white  against  black  order.  Even  in  our  state 
to-day  there  are  few  private  owners  who  have  absolute 
freedom  to  do  what  they  like  with  their  possessions,  and 
there  are  few  public  officials  who  have  not  a  certain 
freedom  and  a  certain  sense  of  proprietorship  in  their 
departments,  and  in  fact,  as  distinguished  from  rhetoric, 
there  is  every  possible  gradation  between  the  one  thing 
and  the  other.  We  have  to  clear  our  minds  of  misleading 
terms  in  this  affair.  A  clipped  and  regulated  private 
ownership — a  private  company,  for  example,  with  com- 
pletely published  accounts,  taxed  dividends,  with  a  public 
representative  upon  its  board  of  directors  and  parlia- 
mentary powers — may  be  an  infinitely  more  honest, 
efficient,  and  controllable  public  service  than  a  badly 
elected  or  badly  appointed  board  of  governors  of  officials. 
We  may — and  I  for  one  do — think  that  a  number  of  pub- 
lic services,  an  increasing  number  of  public  services,  can 


Appendix  375 

be  best  administered  as  public  concerns.  Most  of  us  here 
to-night  are,  I  believe,  pretty  advanced  municipalizers. 
But  it  does  not  follow  that  we  believe  that  any  sort  of 
representative  or  official  body  pitched  into  any  sort  of 
area  is  necessarily  better  than  any  sort  of  private  control. 
The  more  we  are  disposed  to  municipalize,  the  more  in- 
cumbent it  is  upon  us  to  search  out,  study,  and  invent, 
and  to  work  to  develop  the  most  efficient  public  bodies 
possible.  And  my  case  to-night  is,  that  the  existing  local 
government  bodies,  your  town  councils,  borough  coun- 
cils, urban  district  boards,  and  so  forth,  are,  for  the 
purposes  of  municipalization,  far  from  being  the  best 
possible  bodies,  and  that  even  your  county  councils  fall 
short,  that  by  their  very  nature  all  these  bodies  must  fall 
far  short  of  the  highest  possible  efficiency,  and  that  as 
time  goes  on  they  must  fail  even  more  than  they  do  now 
to  discharge  the  duties  we  Fabians  would  like  to  thrust 
upon  them.  And  the  general  reason  upon  which  I  would 
have  you  condemn  these  bodies  and  seek  for  some  newer 
and  ampler  ones  before  you  press  the  municipalization  of 
public  concerns  to  its  final  trial,  is  this — that  their  areas 
of  activity  are  impossibly  small. 

The  areas  within  which  we  shape  our  public  activities 
at  present,  derive,  I  hold,  from  the  needs  and  conditions 
of  a  past  order  of  things.  They  have  been  patched  and 
repaired  enormously,  but  they  still  preserve  the  essential 
conceptions  of  a  vanished  organization.  They  have  been 
patched  and  repaired  first  to  meet  this  urgent  specific 
necessity  and  then  that,  and  never  with  any  comprehen- 
sive anticipation  of  coming  needs,  and  at  last  they  have 


376  Appendix 

become  absolutely  impossible.  They  are  like  fifteenth- 
century  houses  which  have  been  continuously  occupied 
by  a  succession  of  enterprising  but  short-sighted  and 
close-fisted  owners,  and  which  have  now  been,  with  the 
very  slightest  use  of  lath-and-plaster  partitions  and  gey- 
ser hot-water  apparatus,  converted  into  modern  resi- 
dential flats.  These  local  government  areas  of  to-day 
represent  for  the  most  part  what  were  once  distinct,  dis- 
tinctly organized,  and  individualized  communities,  com- 
plete minor  economic  systems,  and  they  preserve  a 
tradition  of  what  was  once  administrative  convenience 
and  economy.  To-day,  I  submit,  they  do  not  represent 
communities  at  all,  and  they  become  more  wasteful  and 
more  inconvenient  with  every  fresh  change  in  economic 
necessity. 

This  is  a  double  change.  Let  me  first  of  all  say  a  word 
in  justification  for  my  first  assertion  that  existing  areas 
do  not  represent  communities,  and  then  pass  to  a  nec- 
essary consequence  or  so  of  this  fact.  I  submit  that 
before  the  railways,  that  is  to  say  in  the  days  in  which 
the  current  conception  of  local  government  areas  arose, 
the  villages,  and  still  more  the  boroughs,  and  even  the 
counties,  were  practically  complete  minor  economic  sys- 
tems. The  wealth  of  the  locality  was,  roughly  speaking, 
local ;  rich  people  resided  in  contact  with  their  property, 
other  people  lived  in  contact  with  their  work,  and  it  was 
a  legitimate  assumption  that  a  radius  of  a  mile  or  so,  or 
of  a  few  miles,  circumscribed  most  of  the  practical  in- 
terests of  all  the  inhabitants  of  a  locality.  You  got  rich 
and  poor  in  visible  relationships ;  you  got  landlord  and 


Appendix  377 

tenant,  you  got  master  and  workman  all  together.  But 
now,  through  a  revolution  in  the  methods  of  locomotion, 
and  chiefly  through  the  making  of  railways,  this  is 
no  longer  true.  You  can  still  see  the  villages  and  towns 
separated  by  spaces  of  fields  and  physically  distinct,  but 
it  is  no  longer  the  case  that  all  who  dwell  in  these  old 
limits  are  essentially  local  inhabitants  and  mutually  in- 
terdependent as  once  they  would  have  been.  A  large 
proportion  of  our  population  to-day,  a  large  and  an  in- 
creasing proportion,  has  no  localized  interests  at  all  as 
an  eighteenth-century  person  would  have  understood 
locality. 

Take  for  example  Guildford,  or  Folkestone,  and  you 
will  find  that  possibly  even  more  than  half  the  wealth  in 
the  place  is  non-local  wealth — wealth,  that  is,  having  no 
relation  to  the  local  production  of  wealth — and  that  a 
large  majority  of  the  more  educated,  intelligent  and  ac- 
tive inhabitants  derive  their  income,  spend  their  energies, 
and  find  their  absorbing  interests  outside  the  locality. 
They  may  rent  or  own  houses,  but  they  have  no  reality  of 
participation  and  little  illusion  of  participation  in  any 
local  life.  You  will  find  in  both  towns  a  considerable 
number  of  hotels,  inns,  and  refreshment  places  which, 
although  they  are  regulated  by  local  magistrates  upon  a 
basis  of  one  license  to  so  many  inhabitants,  derive  only 
a  small  fraction  of  their  profits  from  the  custom  of  the 
inhabitants.  You  find  too  in  Folkestone,  as  in  most  sea- 
side places,  a  great  number  of  secondary  schools,  draw- 
ing scarcely  a  pupil  from  the  neighbourhood.  And  on 
the  other  hand  you  will  find  labour  in  both  towns,  coming 


378  Appendix 

in  by  a  morning  train  and  going  out  at  night.  And 
neither  of  these  instances  is  an  extreme  type.  As  you 
come  in  towards  London  you  will  find  the  proportion  of 
what  I  would  call  non-local  inhabitants  increasing  until 
in  Brixton,  Hoxton,  or  West  Ham  you  will  find  the  really 
localized  people  a  mere  thread  in  the  mass  of  the  popula- 
tion. Probably  you  find  the  thinnest  sham  of  a  commu- 
nity in  the  London  boroughs,  where  a  clerk  or  a  working 
man  will  shift  his  sticks  from  one  borough  to  another  and 
move  on  to  a  third  without  ever  discovering  what  he  has 
done.  It  is  not  that  all  these  people  do  not  belong  to  a 
community,  but  that  they  belong  to  a  larger  community 
of  a  new  type  which  your  administrators  have  failed  to 
discover,  and  which  your  working  theory  of  local  gov- 
ernment ignores.  This  is  a  question  I  have  already  writ- 
ten about  with  some  completeness  in  a  book  published  a 
year  or  so  ago,  and  called  "Anticipations,"  and  in  that 
book  you  will  find  a  more  lengthy  exposition  than  I  can 
give  here  and  now  of  the  nature  of  this  expansion.  But 
the  gist  of  the  argument  is  that  the  distribution  of  popu- 
lation, the  method  of  aggregation  in  a  community,  is 
determined  almost  entirely  by  the  available  means  of 
locomotion.  The  maximum  size  of  any  community  of 
regular  daily  intercourse  is  determined  by  the  length  of 
something  that  I  may  best  suggest  to  your  mind  by  the 
phrase — the  average  possible  suburban  journey  in  an 
hour.  A  town,  for  example,  in  which  the  only  method 
of  progression  is  on  foot  along  crowded  ways,  will  be 
denser  in  population  and  smaller  in  area  than  one  with 
wide  streets  and  a  wheeled  traffic,  and  that  again  will 


Appendix  379 

be  denser  and  compacter  than  one  with  numerous  tubes, 
trams,  and  light  railways.  Every  improvement  in  loco- 
motion forces  the  suburban  ring  of  houses  outward,  and 
relieves  the  pressure  of  the  centre.  Now,  this  principle 
of  expanding  communities  holds  not  only  in  regard  to 
towns,  but  also  on  the  agricultural  country  side.  There, 
also,  facilities  for  the  more  rapid  collection  of  produce 
mean  finally  the  expansion  and  coalescence  of  what  were 
previously  economic  unities. 

Now  if,  while  this  expansion  of  the  real  communities 
goes  on,  you  keep  to  the  old  boundary  lines,  you  will  find 
an  increasing  proportion  of  your  population  straddling 
those  lines.  You  will  find  that  many  people  who  once 
slept  and  worked  and  reared  their  children  and  wor- 
shipped and  bought  all  in  one  area,  are  now,  as  it  were, 
dclocallzcd;  they  have  overflowed  their  containing  local- 
ity, and  they  live  in  one  area,  they  work  in  another,  and 
they  go  to  shop  in  a  third.  And  the  only  way  in  which 
you  can  localize  them  again  is  to  expand  your  areas  to 
their  new  scale. 

This  is  a  change  in  human  conditions  that  has  been  a 
very  distinctive  event  in  the  history  of  the  past  century, 
and  it  is  still  in  progress.  But  I  think  there  is  excellent 
reason  for  supposing  that  for  practical  purposes  this 
change,  made  by  the  railway  and  the  motor,  this  devel- 
opment of  local  locomotion,  will  reach  a  definite  limit  in 
the  next  hundred  years.  We  are  witnessing  the  comple- 
tion of  a  great  development  that  has  altered  the  average 
possible  svtburban  journey  in  an  hour  from  one  of  four 
or  five  miles  to  one  of  thirty  miles,  and  I  doubt  very 


380  Appendix 

much  whether,  when  every  tendency  of  expansion  has 
been  reckoned  with,  this  average  hour  journey  will  ever 
get  much  beyond  sixty  or  seventy  miles  an  hour.  A 
radius  of  four  or  five  miles  marked  the  maximum  size 
of  the  old  community.  A  radius  of  a  hundred  miles  will 
certainly  mark  the  maximum  of  the  new  community.  And 
so  it  is  no  effectual  answer  to  my  general  argument  to 
say  that  a  revision  of  administrative  areas  always  has 
been  and  alw^ays  will  be  a  public  necessity.  To  a  certain 
extent  that  always  has  been  and  always  will  be  true,  but 
on  a  scale  in  no  way  comparable  to  the  scale  on  which 
it  is  true  to-day,  because  of  these  particular  inventions. 
This  need  in  its  greatness  is  a  peculiar  feature  of  the 
present  time,  and  a  peculiar  problem  of  the  present  time. 
The  municipal  areas  that  were  convenient  in  the  Baby- 
lonian, ancient  Egyptian,  or  Roman  empires  were  no 
larger  and  no  smaller  than  those  that  served  the  purpose 
of  seventeenth-century  Europe,  and  I  believe  it  is  highly 
probable — I  think  the  odds  are  in  favour  of  the  belief — 
that  the  most  convenient  administrative  areas  of  the 
year  2000  will  be  no  larger  and  no  smaller  than  those  for 
many  subsequent  centuries.  We  are,  in  this  respect,  in 
the  full  flow  of  a  great  and  permanent  transition.  And 
the  social  and  political  aspect  of  the  change,  is  this  stead- 
ily increasing  proportion  of  people — more  especially  in 
our  suburban  areas — who  are,  so  far  as  our  old  divisions 
go,  dclocalized.  They  represent,  in  fact,  a  community 
of  a  new  sort,  the  new  great  modern  community,  which  is 
seeking  to  establish  itself  in  the  room  of  the  dwindling, 
little,  highly  localized  communities  of  the  past. 


Appendix  381 

Now  what  are  the  practical  consequences  of  this  large 
and  increasing  non-local  element  in  your  old  local  gov- 
ernment areas?  First,  there  is  this.  The  non-local  peo- 
ple do  not  follow,  have  neither  the  time,  nor  the  freedom, 
nor  the  stimulus  of  sufficient  interests  to  follow,  local 
politics.  They  are  a  sort  of  Outlanders.  Local  politics 
remain  therefore  more  and  more  in  the  hands  of  the 
dwindling  section  of  people  whose  interests  really  are  cir- 
cumscribed by  the  locality.  These  are  usually  the  small 
local  tradesmen,  the  local  building  trade,  sometimes  a 
doctor  and  always  a  solicitor ;  and  the  most  energetic  and 
active  and  capable  of  these,  and  the  one  with  the  keenest 
eye  to  business,  is  usually  the  solicitor.  Whatever  you 
put  into  the  hands  of  a  local  authority — education, 
lighting,  communications — you  necessarily  put  into  the 
hands  of  a  group  of  this  sort.  Here  and  there,  of  course, 
there  may  be  variations ;  an  organized  labour  vote  may 
send  in  a  representative,  or  some  gentleman  of  leisure 
and  philanthropic  tastes,  like  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw,  may 
confer  distinction  upon  local  deliberations,  but  that  will 
not  alter  the  general  state  of  affairs.  The  state  of  affairs 
you  must  expect  as  the  general  rule,  is  local  control  by 
petty  local  interests,  a  state  of  affairs  that  will  certainly 
intensify  in  the  years  to  come,  unless  some  revision  of 
areas  can  be  contrived  that  will  overtake  the  amplifying 
interests  of  the  delocalized  section  of  the  population. 

Let  me  point  out  what  is  probably  the  result  of  a  dim 
recognition  of  this  fact  by  the  non-local  population,  and 
that  is  the  extreme  jealousy  of  rates  and  municipal  trad- 
ing by  the  less  localized  paying  classes  in  the  commu- 


382  Appendix 

nity.  That  is  a  question  we  Socialists,  believing  as  we  do 
all  of  us  at  least  in  the  abstract  theory  of  municipaliza- 
tion, must  particularly  consider.  The  easy  exasperation 
of  the  £iooo-a-year  man  at  the  rates  and  his  extreme 
patience  under  Imperial  taxation  is  incomprehensible,  un- 
less you  recognize  this  fact  of  his  delocalization.  Then 
at  once  it  becomes  clear.  He  penetrates  the  pretences 
of  the  system  to  a  certain  extent;  and  he  is  infuriated 
by  the  fact  of  taxation  without  representation,  tempered 
by  a  mysteriously  ineffective  voting  paper  left  at  his 
door.  I  myself,  as  one  of  the  delocalized  class,  will  con- 
fess he  has  my  sympathy.  And  those  who  believe  in  the 
idea  of  the  ultimate  municipalization  of  most  large  in- 
dustries, will  continue  to  find  in  this  non-localized  class, 
working  especially  through  the  medium  of  Parliament, 
a  persistent  and  effective  obstruction  to  all  such  projects, 
unless  such  a  rectification  of  areas  can  be  contrived  as 
will  overtake  the  delocalization  and  the  diffusion  of  in- 
terests that  has  been  and  is  still  going  on.  I  will  confess 
that  it  seems  to  me  that  this  opposition  between  the  lo- 
calized and  the  non-localized  classes  in  the  future,  or  to 
be  more  correct,  the  opposition  between  the  man  whose 
ideas  and  life  lie  in  a  small  area,  and  the  man  whose  ideas 
and  life  lie  in  a  great  area,  is  likely  to  give  us  that  divid- 
ing line  in  politics  for  which  so  many  people  are  looking 
to-day.  For  this  question  of  areas  has  its  Imperial  as 
well  as  its  local  side.  You  have  already  seen  the  Liberal 
party  split  upon  the  Transvaal  question ;  you  yourselves 
have — I  am  told — experienced  some  slight  parallel  tend- 
ency to  fission,  and  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  this  was, 


Appendix  383 

after  all,  only  another  aspect  of  this  great  question  of 
areas,  which  I  would  now  discuss  in  relation  to  municipal 
trading.  The  small  communities  are  fighting  for  exist- 
ence and  their  dear  little  ways,  the  synthetic  great  com- 
munities are  fighting  to  come  into  existence,  and  to  ab- 
sorb the  small  communities.  And  curiously  enough  at 
our  last  meeting  you  heard  Mr.  Belloc,  with  delightful 
wit  and  subtlety,  expounding  the  very  antithesis  of  the 
conceptions  I  am  presenting  to-night.  Mr.  Belloc — who 
has  evidently  never  read  his  Malthus — dreams  of  a  beau- 
tiful little  village  community  of  peasant  proprietors,  each 
sticking  like  a  barnacle  to  his  own  little  bit  of  property, 
beautifully  healthy  and  simple  and  illiterate  and  Roman 
Catholic  and  local,  local  over  the  ears.  I  am  afraid  the 
stars  in  their  courses  fight  against  such  pink  and  golden 
dreams.  Every  tramway,  every  new  twopenny  tube, 
every  light  railway,  every  improvement  in  your  omnibus 
services,  in  your  telephonic  services,  in  your  organization 
of  credit,  increases  the  proportion  of  your  delocalized 
class,  and  sucks  the  ebbing  life  from  your  old  communi- 
ties into  the  veins  of  the  new. 

Well,  you  may  say,  no  doubt  this  is  right  so  far  as  it 
goes ;  existing  local  government  areas  do  not  represent 
real  countries,  but  still  these  local  government  devices 
are  of  service  for  cutting  up  and  distributing  administra- 
tive work.  But  that  is  exactly  what  they  are  not.  They 
are  worse  when  you  consider  them  in  regard  to  function, 
than  when  you  consider  them  in  regard  to  representation. 
Since  our  conceptions  of  what  constitutes  a  local  ad- 
ministrative area  were   developed  there   has  arisen  the 


384  Appendix 

problems  of  water  supply  and  of  organized  sewage,  of 
railways,  tramways,  and  communications  generally,  and 
of  lighting  and  telephonic  intercourse;  there  hangs  over 
us,  though  the  average  local  authority  has  no  eyes  to  see 
it,  the  necessity  of  adapting  our  roads  to  accommodate 
an  increasing  new  traffic  of  soft-tyred  vehicles,  and 
it  is  not  improbable  that  heating  by  wholesale,  either 
by  gas  or  electricity,  will  presently  be  also  possible  and 
desirable.  For  all  these  things  we  need  wide  views,  wide 
minds  and  wide  areas,  and  still  more  do  we  want  wide 
views  for  the  business  of  education  that  is  now  also  com- 
ing into  the  sphere  of  local  administration. 

It  happens  that  I  have  had  an  object-lesson  in  this 
matter  of  local  government ;  and  indeed  it  is  my  object- 
lesson  that  has  led  to  this  paper  to-night.  I  live  upon  the 
boundary  line  of  the  Sandgate  Urban  District  Board,  a 
minute  authority  with  a  boundary  line  that  appears  to 
have  been  determined  originally  about  1850  by  mapping 
out  the  wanderings  of  an  intoxicated  excursionist,  and 
which — the  only  word  is  interdigitates — with  the  borough 
of  Folkestone,  the  Urban  District  of  Cheriton,  and  the 
borough  of  Hythe.  Each  of  these  bodies  is  by  way  of 
being  a  tramway  authority,  each  is  at  liberty  to  secure 
powers  to  set  up  generating  stations  and  supply  elec- 
tricity, each  is  a  water  authority,  and  each  does  its  own 
little  drainage,  and  the  possibilities  of  friction  and  litiga- 
tion are  endless.  The  four  places  constitute  an  urban 
area  greatly  in  need  of  organized  intercommunication, 
but  the  four  authorities  have  never  been  able  to  agree 
upon  a  scheme ;  and  now  Folkestone  is  concerning  itself 


Appendix  385 

with  the  project  of  a  Httle  internal  tramway  system  all 
of  its  very  own.  Sandgate  has  succumbed  to  the  spell 
of  the  South  Eastern  Railway  Company,  and  has  come 
into  line  with  a  project  that  will  necessitate  a  change  of 
cars  at  the  Folkestone  boundary.  Folkestone  has  con- 
ceded its  electrical  supply  to  a  company,  but  Sandgate, 
on  this  issue,  stands  out  gallantly  for  municipal  trading, 
and  proposes  to  lay  down  a  plant  and  set  up  a  generating 
station  all  by  itself  to  supply  a  population  of  sixteen 
hundred  people,  mostly  indigent.  In  the  meanwhile, 
Sandgate  refuses  its  inhabitants  the  elementary  conven- 
ience of  the  electric  light,  and  when,  quite  inadvertently, 
I  connected  across  the  convolutions  of  the  boundary  with 
the  Folkestone  supply,  my  life  was  darkened  by  the  threat 
of  impossible  litigation.  But  if  Folkestone  repudiates 
municipal  enterprise  in  the  matter  of  lighting,  I  gather  it 
does  not  do  so  in  the  matter  of  telephones ;  and  there  has 
been  talk  of  a  neat  little  Folkestone  telephonic  system 
competing  against  the  National  Telephone  Company,  a 
compact  little  conversazione  of  perhaps  a  hundred  people, 
rate  sustained.  And  how  is  the  non-local  inhabitant  to 
come  into  these  things  ?  The  intelligent  non-local  inhab- 
itant can  only  save  his  two  or  three  pounds  of  contribu- 
tion to  this  folly  or  that  by  putting  in  twenty  or  thirty 
pounds'  worth  of  work  in  local  politics.  He  has  no  local 
connections,  no  local  influence,  he  hasn't  a  chance  against 
the  plumber.  When  the  house  I  occupy  was  built,  it  was 
a  mere  interposition  of  Providence  that  the  drain  did  not 
go  southward  into  a  Folkestone  sewer  instead  of  north- 
ward into  Sandgate.     Heaven  knows  what  would  have 


386  Appendix 

happened  if  it  had !  I  and  my  neighbours  are  by  a  special 
concession  permitted  to  have  water  from  the  Folkestone 
source.  By  incessant  vigilance  we  do,  I  believe,  usually 
succeed  in  deducting  the  Folkestone  water  rate  from  the 
Sandgate  general  rate  which  covers  water,  but  the  wear 
and  tear  is  enormous.  However,  these  are  details,  dear 
to  my  heart,  but  the  merest  marginal  comments  to  my 
argument.  The  essential  fact  is  the  impracticable  silliness 
of  these  little  divisions,  the  waste  of  men,  the  waste  of 
nervous  energy,  the  waste  of  administrative  energy  they 
involve.  I  am  convinced  that  in  the  case  of  almost  any 
public  service  in  the  Folkestone  district  with  our  present 
boundaries,  the  administrative  waste  will  more  than  equal 
the  profit  of  a  private  company  with  parliamentary  powers 
overriding  our  local  authorities ;  that  if  it  is  simply  a 
choice  between  these  little  bodies  and  a  company  (of  the 
common  type  even),  then  in  lighting,  locomotion,  and 
indeed  in  almost  any  general  public  service,  I  would  say, 
"  give  me  the  company."  With  companies  one  may  hope 
to  deal  later ;  they  will  not  stand  in  the  way  of  developing 
saner  areas,  but  an  obstinate  little  authority  clutching 
everything  in  its  hands,  and  led  by  a  clerk  naturally  in- 
terested in  litigation,  and  who  is  also  something  of  an  ex- 
pert in  political  organization,  will  be  an  altogether  harder 
thing  to  supersede. 

This  difficulty  in  greater  or  lesser  degree  is  everywhere. 
In  the  case  of  poor  law  administration  in  particular,  and 
also  in  the  case  of  elementary  education,  the  whole  coun- 
try displays  what  is  another  aspect  of  this  same  general 
phenomenon  of  delocalization ;  the  withdrawal  of  all  the 


Appendix  387 

wealthier  people  from  the  areas  that  are  specializing  as 
industrial  centres,  and  which  have  a  rising  population  of 
poor  workers,  to  areas  that  are  specializing  as  residential, 
and  which  have,  if  anything,  a  falling  proportion  of  poor 
labourers.  In  a  place  like  West  Ham  or  Tottenham  you 
find  starved  schools  and  an  abundant  delocalized  in- 
dustrial population,  and,  by  way  of  contrast,  at  Guildford 
or  Farnham  for  example,  you  will  find  enormously  rich 
delocalized  people,  belonging  to  the  same  great  com- 
munity as  these  workers,  who  pay  only  the  most  trivial 
poor  rate  and  school  rate  for  the  benefit  of  their  few  im- 
mediate neighbours,  and  escape  altogether  from  the 
burthens  of  West  Ham.  By  treating  these  places  as  sep- 
arate communities  you  commit  a  cruel  injustice  on  the 
poor.  So  far  as  these  things  go,  to  claim  convenience  for 
the  existing  areas  is  absurd.  And  it  is  becoming  more 
and  more  evident  that  with  tramways,  with  lighting,  with 
electric  heating  and  force  supply,  and  with  the  supply 
of  water  to  great  populations,  there  is  an  enormous  ad- 
vantage in  large  generating  stations  and  large  areas ; 
that  these  things  must  be  handled  in  areas  of  hundreds  of 
square  miles  to  be  efficiently  done. 

In  the  case  of  secondary  and  higher  education  one 
discovers  an  equal  stress  and  incompatibility.  At  present, 
I  must  point  out,  even  the  boundaries  of  the  projected 
educational  authority  for  London  are  absurdly  narrow. 
For  example,  in  Folkestone,  as  in  every  town  upon  the 
south  coast,  there  are  dozens  of  secondary  schools  that 
are  purely  London  schools,  and  filled  with  London  boys 
and  girls,  and  there  are  endless  great  schools  like  Ton- 


388  Appendix 

bridge  and  Charterhouse  outside  the  London  area  that  are 
also  London  schools.  If  you  get,  for  example,  a  vigorous 
and  efficient  educational  authority  for  London,  and  you 
raise  a  fine  educational  system  in  the  London  area,  you 
will  find  it  incomplete  in  an  almost  vital  particular.  You 
will  give  the  prosperous  middle  class  and  the  upper  class 
of  London  the  alternative  of  good  teaching  and  bad  air, 
or  of  what  very  probably,  under  tolerant  local  authorities, 
will  be  relatively  bad  teaching  and  open  air  and  exercise 
out  of  London.  You  will  have  to  tax  this  influential  class 
of  people  for  the  magnificent  schools  they  in  many  cases 
will  be  unable  to  use.  As  a  consequence,  you  will  find 
again  all  the  difficulties  of  their  opposition,  practically 
the  same  difficulties  that  arise  so  naturally  in  the  way 
of  municipal  trading.  I  would  suggest  that  it  would  be 
not  only  logical  but  politic,  for  the  London  Educational 
Authority,  and  not  the  local  authority,  to  control  every 
secondary  school  wherever  it  happened  to  be,  which  in 
an  average  of  years  drew  more  than  half  its  attendance 
from  the  London  area.  That,  however,  by  the  way.  The 
point  more  material  to  my  argument  here  is  that  the  edu- 
cational organization  of  the  London  area,  the  Thames 
valley,  and  the  southern  counties  are  inseparable ;  that  the 
question  of  local  locomotion  is  rapidly  becoming  impossi- 
ble upon  any  smaller  basis  than  such  an  area ;  that  roads, 
light  railways,  drainage,  water,  are  all  clamouring  now 
to  be  dealt  with  on  the  big  scale ;  and  that  the  more  you 
cut  this  great  area  up,  the  more  you  leave  it  in  the  hands 
of  the  localized  men,  the  more  you  sin  against  efficiency 
and  the  light. 


Appendix  389 

I  hope  that  you  will  consider  this  first  part  of  my  case 
proved.  And  now  I  pass  on  to  the  more  debatable  ques- 
tion— the  nature  of  the  new  divisions  that  are  to  replace 
the  old.  I  would  suggest  that  this  is  a  matter  only  to 
be  answered  in  detail  by  an  exhaustive  analysis  of  the 
distribution  of  population  in  relation  to  economic  stand- 
ing, but  I  may  perhaps  just  indicate  roughly  what  at  a 
first  glance  I  imagine  would  be  one  suitable  local  govern- 
ment area.  Let  me  remind  you  that  some  years  ago  the 
Conservative  party,  in  an  outbreak  of  intelligence,  did  in 
a  sort  of  transitory  way  see  something  of  what  I  have 
been  trying  to  express  to-night,  and  created  the  London 
County  Council — only  to  quarrel  with  it  and  hate  it  and 
fear  it  ever  since.  Well,  my  proposal  would  be  to  make 
a  much  greater  area  even  than  the  London  County,  and 
try  to  include  in  it  the  whole  system  of  what  I  might 
call  the  London-centred  population.  I  believe  if  you  were 
to  take  the  whole  valley  of  the  Thames  and  its  tributaries 
and  draw  a  line  along  its  boundary  watershed,  and  then 
include  with  that  Sussex  and  Surrey,  and  the  east  coast 
counties  up  to  the  Wash,  you  would  overtake  and  antici- 
pate the  delocalizing  process  almost  completely.  You 
would  have  what  has  become,  or  is  becoming  very 
rapidly,  a  new  urban  region,  a  complete  community  of 
the  new  type,  rich  and  poor  and  all  sorts  and  aspects  of 
economic  life  together.  I  would  suggest  that  watersheds 
make  excellent  boundaries.  Let  me  remind  you  that  rail- 
ways, tramways,  drain-pipes,  water-pipes,  and  high-roads 
have  this  in  common — they  will  not  climb  over  a  water- 
shed if  they  can  possibly  avoid  doing  so,  and  that  popu- 


390  Appendix 

lation  and  schools  and  poor  tend  always  to  distribute 
themselves  in  accordance  with  these  other  things.  You 
get  the  minimum  of  possible  overlap — such  overlap  as 
the  spreading  out  of  the  great  midland  city  to  meet  Lon- 
don must  some  day  cause — in  this  way.  I  would  suggest 
that  for  the  regulation  of  sanitation,  education,  communi- 
cations, industrial  control,  and  poor  relief,  and  for  the 
taxation  for  these  purposes,  this  area  should  be  one,  gov- 
erned by  one  body,  elected  by  local  constituencies  that 
would  make  its  activities  independent  of  imperial  politics. 
I  propose  that  this  body  should  replace  your  county  coun- 
cils, boards  of  guardians,  urban  and  rural  district  coun- 
cils, and  all  the  rest  of  them  altogether ;  that  you  should 
elect  it,  perhaps  triennially,  once  for  all.  For  any  pur- 
pose of  a  more  local  sort,  local  water-supply  systems,  lo- 
cal tramway  systems — the  tramways  between  Brighton 
and  Shoreham,  for  example — this  body  might  delegate 
its  powers  to  subordinate  committees,  consisting,  it  has 
been  suggested  to  me  by  Mrs.  Sidney  Webb,  of  the  mem- 
bers for  the  local  constituencies  concerned,  together  with 
another  member  or  so  to  safeguard  the  general  interests, 
or  perhaps  with  an  appointed  expert  or  so  in  addition. 
These  committees  would  submit  their  detailed  schemes 
for  the  approval  of  committees  appointed  by  the  general 
body,  and  they  would  be  controllable  by  that  body.  How- 
ever, there  is  no  need  for  detailed  scheming  here  and 
now.     Let  us  keep  to  the  main  idea. 

I  submit  that  such  a  mammoth  municipality  as  this  will 
be,  on  the  one  hand,  an  enormously  more  efficient  substi- 
tute for  your  present  little  local  government  bodies,  and 


Appendix  391 

on  the  other  hand,  will  be  able  to  take  over  a  considerable 
proportion  of  the  detailed  work  and  a  considerable  pro- 
portion of  the  detailed  machinery,  of  your  overworked 
and  too  extensive  central  machinery,  your  local  govern- 
ment board,  education  department,  and  board  of  trade. 
It  will  be  great  enough  and  fine  enough  to  revive  the 
dying  sentiment  of  local  patriotism,  and  it  will  be  a  body 
that  will  appeal  to  the  ambition  of  the  most  energetic  and 
capable  men  in  the  community.  They  will  be  picked  men, 
to  a  much  greater  extent  than  are  your  guardians,  your 
urban  district  councillors  and  town  councillors  and  so  on, 
at  present,  because  there  will  be  perhaps  a  hundred  or  a 
couple  of  hundred  of  them  in  the  place  of  many  thou- 
sands. And  I  venture  to  think  that  in  such  a  body  you 
may  confidently  hope  to  find  a  collective  intelligence  that 
may  be  pitted  against  any  trust  or  board  of  directors  the 
world  is  likely  to  produce. 

I  suggest  this  body  as  a  sort  of  concrete  sample  of  the 
thing  I  have  in  mind.  I  am  quite  open  to  hear  and  accept 
the  most  far-reaching  modification  of  this  scheme;  it  is 
the  idea  of  the  scale  that  I  wish  particularly  to  enforce. 
Municipalize  on  this  scale,  I  would  say,  and  I  am  with 
you  altogether.  Here  is  something  distinctly  and  clearly 
subserving  that  making  of  mankind  upon  which  all  sane 
social  and  political  proposals  must  ultimately  base  them- 
selves. But  to  put  more  power,  and  still  more  power  in 
the  hands  of  these  petty  little  administrative  bodies  that 
we  have  to-day,  is,  I  submit,  folly  and  darkness.  If  the 
existing  areas  are  to  remain  the  same,  then,  on  the  whole, 
my  vote  is  against  municipal  trading,  and  on  the  whole, 


392  Appendix 

with  regard  to  light,  to  tramways  and  communications, 
to  telephones,  and  indeed  to  nearly  all  such  public  ser- 
vices, I  would  prefer  to  see  these  things  in  the  hands  of 
companies,  and  I  would  stipulate  only  for  the  maximum 
publicity  for  their  accounts  and  the  fullest  provision  for 
detailed  regulation  through  the  Board  of  Trade. 


INDEX 


Academy,  The,  criticism  in,  344  n. 
Academy  of  Letters,   considered, 

342 
Addison,  122 
Alcoholism,    Archibald    Reid    on, 

52 

Alge,  S.,  216 

Allbutt,  Clifford,  quoted,  79 

Allen,  Grant,  274 

America,  schools  of,  316-318,  330 

American  Constitution,  227,  228, 
239,  and  note;  contrasted  with 
English  Constitution,  240-248 

Animal  Life  and  Intelligence,  by 
Professor  Lloyd  Morgan,  114 

Anthony,  Saint,  272 

Anthropology,  49 ;  discussed,  60 

Anticipations,  by  H.  G.  Wells,  7, 
187,  239M.,  334M. 

Aristocratic  class,  described  and 
contrasted,  162,  163;  its  aboli- 
tion considered,  225-233;  its 
attitude  towards  the  self-made 
man,  239 

Arithmetic,  the  teaching  of,  196, 
211 

Armstrong,  Professor,  lectures  of, 
172 

Army,  British,  its  officers,  232,  296 

Arnold,  Matthew,  213 

Art,  scholastic  attitude  towards, 
179,  199,  202,  214 

"Arts"  degrees,  198;  qualification 
for,  307 

Association  Phonetique  Interna- 
tionale, 205 


Atheist,  his  attitude  towards  relig- 
ious instruction,  176 

Authors,  endowment  of,  consid- 
ered, 348-364 

Autobiography,  J.  S.  Mills',  326 


B 


Bacon,  Lord,  315,  336 

Bannerman,  Sir  Henry  Campbell, 
28 

Barnardo,  Dr.,  89 

Barnum's  Phonetic  System,  205 

Barrie,  J.  M.,  diverse  opinions 
about,  352 

Bateson,  Mendel's  Principles  of 
Heredity,  47 

Beauty,  as  a  quality  to  breed  for, 
discussed,  39-43 

Benthall,  Dr.,  67 

Bentham  on  education,  307 

Besant,  Sir  Walter,  on  drunken- 
ness, 54 

Bibliography  of  the  Literature  of . 
American  History,  328  n- 

Birmingham,  314 

Birth.     See  Life 

Birth-rate    discussecT,    82-84    «., 

99  «• 

Birth  supply,  universal  duty  to- 
wards, 33;  qualities  to  breed  for, 
discussed,  38-47;  heredity  taints 
discussed,  48-61 

Board  Schools,  203,  317 

Bon,  M.  Gustave  le,  250  n. 

Books,  access  and  distribution  of, 
324;  importance  of,  in  the  devel- 
opment of  civilization,  332 


393 


394 


Index 


Boole,  Mrs.  Mary  Everest,  on  the 
teaching  of  counting,  142  n. 

Booth,  Charles,  107 

Botany,  Kerner's,  219 

Botticelli,  180 

Bright,  John,  republicanism  of, 
229 

British  Association,  47 

Brougham,  Lord,  329 

Browning,  Robert,  writing  done 
under  pressure,  353 

Burslem,  178 


Cambridge  University,  296;  con- 
tinuation of  old  methods,  302; 
Tripos,  314;  Little  Go,  315 

Campbell,  Dr.  Harry,  on  hered- 
itary diseases,  60  n. 

"Capacity"  as  a  quality  to  breed 
for,  discussed,  39,  43-46 

Cape  Colony,  25 

Carnegie,  Andrew,  his  endowment 
of  libraries,  320 

Catholic  Truth  Society,  329 

Chamberlain,  Joseph,  229 

Channing,  Professor,  328  n. 

Character,  formation  of,  169 

Charitable  institutions  discussed, 
86-91 

Chemistry,  the  teaching  of,  217, 
3".  312 

Childhood,  the  early  training  of, 
discussed,  106-142 

China,  civilization  of,  333 

Civil  Service,  advancement  in, 
procured  by  interest,  233 

Classics,  315,  316 

Classics,  English,  347 

Clouston's  Mental  Diseases,  293  n. 

College,  methods  of  education,  301 ; 
new  scheme  suggested,  307;  I. 
Natural  Philosophy  course,  310- 
312;  II.  Biological  course,  312; 
III.  History  course,  314;  Classi- 
cal course  considered,  315 

Comic  papers,  their  influence, 
286-290 


Commodus,  13 

Coram,  founder  of  the  Foundling 
Hospital,  89 

Cornford,  L.  Cope,  quoted  on 
speech,  119  n. 

Coronation,  The,  motives  analyzed, 
2 1 ;  attitude  of  New  Republican- 
ism towards,  24 

"Criminality"  discussed,  50 

Criticism,  its  present  condition  and 
needed  reform,  342;  scheme  for 
magazine  of,  343,  344  and  note; 
endowment  of  chairs  for,  345- 
348,  352 

Crowd,  The,  by  M.  Gustave  le 
Bon,  250  M. 

Crozier,  Dr.  Beattie,  61;  his  His- 
tory of  Intellectual  Development, 
332  n. 

Cultivation  of  the  Mathematical 
Imagination,  The,  142  n. 

Cunningham,  Mr.,  67 


D 


Daily  Chronicle,  The,  criticism  in, 

344  n. 
Daily   News,    The,   criticism   in, 

344.  n. 
Darwin,  Charles,  16,  44,  315 
Death,  10,  21 

Degeneration,  by  Dr.  Nordau,  58 
Delia  Robbia,  89 
Democracy,  244 
Democracy  and  the  Organization  of 

Political  Parties,  by  Ostrogorski, 

250  n. 
Devant,  David,  the  conjuror,  173 
Dickens,  Charles,  229,  341;  writ- 
ing under  pressure,  353 
Dorsetshire,    infantile    death-rate 

in,  80,  81 
Dravadians,  25 
Drawing,  the  teaching  of,  215 
Drunkenness,  Archibald  Reid  on, 

52;  Sir  Walter  Besant  on,  54 
Dublin  Foundling  Hospital,  89 
Durtal,  272 


Index 


395 


E 


Education,  173  {see  School  in  In- 
dex) ;  elementary  schooling  to  be 
finished  at  fourteen,  297;  proper 
method  of  continuation,  301;  re- 
vision of  text-books,  304;  what 
to  learn,  306;  scheme  suggested, 
307-316 

Edwards,  Passmore,  320 

Election,  systems  of,  discussed, 
250-258,  343 

Elizabethan  dramatists,  lectures 
on,  346 

Ellis,  Havelock,  67 

English  Language  Society,  the 
need  for,  135,  136,  141  n.,  204- 
206,  348 

English,  the  teaching  of,  210,  212 

Essays,  as  taught  in  schools,  207 

Euclid,  190,  211 

Ewart,  Professor  Cossar,  67;  his 
Public  Libraries  Act,  320 

Examinations,  197,  214 

Extinct  Monsters,  219 


Fabian  Society,  328  n.,  329 
Fay,  E.  A.,  67 

France,  234;  the  Republic  of,  240; 
its  academy,   260;  its  honours, 

259 

Free  Trade,  27 

Froebel,  on  speech,  116;  on  educa- 
tion, 191,  213 

Foundhng  Hospital,  The,  89 


Galton,  Francis,  his  views  on  the 
improvement  of  the  race,  35,  39- 
48;  on  counting,  142  n.,  277 

Gambling,  181 

Geography,  the  teaching  of,  197, 
217,  218, 311 

Geology,  the  teaching  of,  217,  311 

George,  Henry,  his  Progress  and 
Poverty,  2i'2(> 


Germany,  its  efficiency,  233 

Gissing,  George,  150 

Gladstone,  W.  E.,  27,  44;  politics 

of,  229 
Gouin,  217 

Grece,  Dr.,  on  voting,  250 
Greek,  the  teaching  of,  188,  297; 

educational  value  of,  315 
Grimm's  Law,  207 
Guild  of  Literature,  suggestion  for, 

342;  system  of  honours,  347,  361 


H 


Harcourt,  Sir  William  Vernon, 
death  duties  of,  266 

Hardy,  Thomas,  289 

Hare,  his  system  of  vote  collection, 
250 

Harris,  Mr.,  213 

Harrison,  Frederic,  346 

"Health,"    39;    discussed,    45-47 

Henley,  W.  E.,  his  use  of  lan- 
guage, 126,  136,  345 

Herbart,  213 

Herbert,  Lord,  of  Cherburg,  on 
inoculation,  117 

Hereditary  Genius,  by  Francis 
Galton,  39 

Heredity,  in  drink,  55;  in  insanity, 
58;  in  disease,  59;  early  traits 
of,  69 

History,  the  teaching  of,  197,  215, 
218 

History  of  Intellectual  Develop- 
ment, 332  n. 

Holzel,    216 

Home,  its  influence  discussed, 
150;  modern  home  life  contrast- 
ed with  past,  155;  three  types  of 
home  tradition  described,  156- 
165,  185 

Honours  and  privileges  discussed, 
258-262 

Hooley,  235 

House  of  Lords,  228,  229;  scheme 
to  reform  the,  262  n. 

"Human  Physiology,"  218 


39^ 


Index 


Humanitarian,  The,  36;  its  aims, 
48 

Hutchinson,  Rev.  H.  N.,  his  Ex- 
tinct Monsters,  219 


lies,  George,  328  n. 

Industrial  Democracy,  by  Mr.  and 

Mrs.  Sidney  Webb,  100 
Infantile  mortality  discussed,  80- 

85;  from  burning,  97  n. 

J 

James,  Professor  William,  210 
Jena,  Battle  of,  234 
Jews,  culture  of  the,  333 
Jury,  election  by,  discussed,  253, 
258.  343 


Kerner's  Botany,  219 

Kindergarten  schools,  190 

King,    conditions    under   a,    237; 

servility  towards,  238 
Kingship,  the  attitude  of  New  Re- 
publicanism  towards,    24;   dis- 
cussed, 225-234 
Kipling,   Rudyard,   diverse   opin- 
ions about,  352 


Labouchere,  Henrj',  87 
Labour  class,  described,  160,  161 
Lancashire,  infantile  death-rate  in, 

80,  81 
Lancet,  The,  on  hereditary  diseases, 

60  M. 
Language,    its    importance,    115; 

hindrances  to  proper  use  of,  117; 

man's   ignorance    of,    120-127; 

means  for  the  better  learning  of, 

discussed,   128-140 
Lansdowne,  Marquis  of,  231 
Latin,  188,  198,  206;  the  teaching 

of,  297 ;  educational  value  of,  315 


Leonardo,  180 

Lever,  J.,  97  n. 

Liberalism,  229 

Liberty,  276 

Library,  Public,  200;  the  need  of, 
in  schools,  219,  309,  311;  pub- 
lic, 327 

Life,  definition  of,  8,  12;  Schopen- 
hauer's views  of,  15;  evolution 
of,  16-19;  improvement  in  qual- 
ity of  birth  supply  discussed,  33 ; 
qualities  to  breed  for,  discussed, 
38 

Life  and  Labour  0}  the  People,  by 
Charles  Booth;  107 

Lipton,  Sir  Thomas,  158 

Literature,  its  influence  and  need- 
ed restriction  for  the  young,  286- 
291;  importance  of,  in  the  de- 
velopment of  civilization,  332- 
335 ;  endowment  of,  348-362 

Living  Animals  0}  the  World,  219 

London  College  of  Preceptors, 
subjects  for  the  examinations  of, 
197 

London  Royal  College  of  Science, 
deficiencies  of,  300 

London  Teachers'  Guild,  197 

London  University,  317 

Londonderry,  Marquis  of,  231 

Love,  influence  on  life,  8 

M 

Mackinder,   Mr.,    on   geography, 

^73 

Magazine  for  contemporary  cnti- 
cism,  343,  344  and  yiote,  345 

Mahomet,  272 

Man,  need  of  general  principles, 
4 ;  aims  of  the  New  Republic  for 
the  guidance  and  improvement 
of,  7-31;  the  birth  question  dis- 
cussed, 33-68;  first  heredity,  69; 
natural  man  discussed,  70-74; 
early  treatment  and  require- 
ments of,  74-78;  results  from 
lack  of  proper  treatment,  76-85; 
means  to  be  used  for  the  im- 


Index 


397 


provement  in  the  conditions  of, 
discussed,  85-105;  early  train- 
ing of  the  intelligence,  106-114; 
early  training  of  speech,  114; 
hindrances  towards  learning  to 
speak,  117;  ignorance  of  lan- 
guage of  the  average  man,  120- 
127;  means  to  be  used  for  the 
training  of  the  use  of  language, 
128-140;  means  to  be  used  for 
the  training  of  the  character  and 
mind,  140;  on  teaching  to  count, 
142;  on  teaching  to  draw,  144; 
his  present  state  contrasted  with 
what  he  might  have  been,  149; 
influence  of  home  life  on,  151- 
168;  influence  of  school  on,  167- 
180;  typical  Englishman  de- 
scribed, 182-185;  schooling,  186- 
222;  a  creature  of  circumstance, 
223;  influenced  by  his  sur- 
roundings, 234;  servility  to  roy- 
alty, 238;  self-made,  239;  de- 
velopment from  childhood  to 
adolescence,  270;  the  sex  ques- 
tion discussed,  270-293;  higher 
education  of,  294-330;  impor- 
tance of  thought  in  the  develop- 
ment of,  332;  conditions  needful 
for  the  growth  of  thought,  336; 
scheme  for  the  development  of 
thought,  338-364;  his  own  share 
in  the  New  Republic,  xtb-x-iQ 

M.A.P.,iS9 

Maple,  Sir  John  Blundell,  158 

Marlowe,  sham  enthusiasm  about, 
346 

Martin,  Mrs.  Victoria  Woodhull, 
on  the  improvement  of  the 
birth  supply,  37;  on  the  "Rapid 
Multiplication  of  the  Unfit,"  48 

Mathematics,  importance  of,  191, 
199;  need  of  improvement  in 
teaching,  211-213,  3ii>  3^4 

Meditations  of  Marcus  Aurelius, 
The,  13 

Meiklejohn,  Professor,  books  on 
geography  by,   197 

Meldola,  Professor,  67 


Mendel's  Principles  of  Heredity, 

47  n. 
Mental  Diseases,  Clouston's,  293  n. 
Menteath,   Stuart,   67,   68  «.;  on 

parental     obligations,     94     n., 

103  n. 
Meredith,  George,  his  use  of  lan- 
guage, 122,  126 
Middle   class,   life  and  dwellings 

described,   158-160 
Military  organization,  311  w. 
Mills,  John  Stuart,  on  voting,  250; 

his  Autobiography,  326 
"Minimum  Wage"  discussed,  100 
Miracle  plays,  346 
Modern   languages,   on   teaching, 

196,  197,  199 
Modern  Society,  159 
Monarchy,  its  abolition  considered, 

225-234;    conditions    under    a, 

236-238 
Moore,   George,  diverse  opinions 

about,  352 
"Moral  Chaos,  A,"  274 
Morgan,  Professor  Lloyd,  67,  114 
Morning  Post,  The,  214;  criticism 

in,  344  n. 
Morrison,  Arthur,  150 
Motherhood,  277,  281,  283 
Municipalization     of     industries, 

264 
Music,  the  teaching  of,  193, 194  n., 

203,  214 

N 

Napoleon,  234 

Natural  History,  197;  the  teaching 
of,  214,  218 

Natural  Philosophy  course,  311 

Nature,  instincts,  71;  methods  of, 
104;  scholastic  attitude  towards, 
176-179 

"New  Republicanism,"  definition 
of,  7;  its  aims,  etc.,  19;  its  atti- 
tude towards  the  birth  supply, 
62-68;  its  means  for  the  enforce- 
ment of  parental  obligations,  93- 
95 ;  its  attitude  towards  language 


398 


Index 


discussed,  127-138;  remedies 
for  raising  social  state,  165;  its 
attitude  towards  religious  teach- 
ing in  schools,  199,  224;  its  atti- 
tude towards  monarchy,  227- 
233,  236;  a  medium  between  the 
extremes  of  English  monarchism 
and  American  democracy,  248; 
election  by  jury  discussed,  252- 
258;  its  attitude  towards  prop- 
erty, 265-267;  the  sex  question, 
285-295 ;  its  methods  for  higher 
educadon  discussed,  295-330; 
its  attitude  towards  literature 
discussed,  331-364;  summary  of, 
366-371. 

Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  315,  336 

Nordau,  Dr.,  on  Sanity,  strain  in 
breed  to  be  catered  for,  39;  his 
Degeneration  considered,  58 

Norfolk,  Duke  of,  231 

Nursery  ryhmes,  132,  and  ywte 


Ostrogorski,  250  w. 

Oxford  University,  conservatism  of, 

P 

Parker,  Colonel,  213 

Paul,  Herbert,  346 

Pearson,  Professor  Karl,  67 

Pearson's  Weekly,  159 

Perry,  Professor,  on  mathematics, 
211,  212 

Physics,  the  teaching  of,  216-218, 
310 

Pitman's  System,  205 

Plato,  278;  translations  of,  315, 
336 

Plutarch,  230 

Pocock,  Mr.,  67 

"Policy,"  224,  225 

Polygamy,  278,  279,  281 

Poor  law  legislation,  90;  with  re- 
gard to  dwellings,  95 

Post  Office,  its  managers,  231 

Poverty,  by  Seebohm  Rowntree,  87 


Preyer  on  speech,  116,  117 

Professors,  over  specialized,  299; 
their  methods  of  teaching,  301- 
306;  endowment  of  research,  322 

Progress  and  Poverty,  by  Henry 
George,  326 

Pronunciation,  206 

Property  discussed,  260-266;  min- 
imum mental  qualification  for, 
296 

Public  libraries,  new  organization 
needed,  326,  327 

Publishers,  compilation  of 
"guides"  needed,  327-329 


R 


"Rapid  Multiplication  of  the  Un- 
fit," 48 

Rationalist  Press  Association,  329 

Reading,  the  teaching  of,  203,  205 

Reeves,  W.  P.,  loi  n. 

Reid,  Mr.  Archibald,  on  immunity 
from  disease,  39;  on  alcoholism, 
52,  67 

Religion,  its  insufficiency  to  life, 
4;  instruction  in,  175,  184;  as 
part  of  school  training,  199; 
tests  in,  295 

Republicanism  considered,  225- 
227 

Rippmann,  216 

Rousseau,  72 

Rowntree,  Seebohm,  on  poverty, 

87 
Royal  Academy  of  Arts,  260 
Royal  College  of  Science,  216 
Ruskin,  213;  Unto  This  Last,  by, 

326 
Ruskin  Hall,  Oxford,  founded  by 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Vrooman,  68  n. 
Rutlandshire,  infantile  death-rate 

in,  80,  81 


Salisbury,  Lord,  on  the  Survival  of 

the  Fittest,  47 
Sanity,  39 ;  discussed,  5  7 


Index 


399 


School,  middle  class,  i6o;  influ- 
ence of,  167;  masters  and  mis- 
tresses discussed,  169-180;  need 
of  reform  in,  181;  typical  prod- 
uct of,  183-187;  origin  and  de- 
velopment of,  187;  the  teaching 
of  languages  in,  188;  kinder- 
garten, 190;  mathematical  teach- 
ing in,  191;  general  working  of, 
193;  proper  system  of  training 
in,  201-222;  examinations  on 
leaving,  295,  316,  317 
Schoolmaster  discussed,  169-180, 
206;  not  responsible  for  manner 
of  modern  teaching,  208,  219; 
incapacity  of,  297,  299 
Schoolmistress,  170,  172,  209 
Schopenhauer,  his  view  of  life,  15, 

16,  21,  336 
Science,  the  teaching  of,  192,  216, 

322;  development  of,  362 
Scott,  Sir  Walter,  341;  writing  un- 
der pressure,  353 
Servants,  154 

Sex,  question  of,  considered,  270; 
physical  side,   277;  question  of 
preference  and  choice,  279-285 
Shakespeare,  336 
Shaw,    Bernard,    his    manner    of 

spelling,  204 
"Smartness,"  163 
Smith,  Adam,  315 
Society    for    the     Promotion     of 

Christian  Knowledge,  329 
Somaliland,  early  social  condition 

of,  49 
South  Kensington  Museum,  hbra- 

ries  of,  300  n. 
Spectator,  The,  criticism  in,  344 
SpeUing,  discussion  on,  204-206 
Spencer,  Herbert,  213 
State    Experiments    in    Australia 
and  New  Zealand,   by   W.   P. 
Reeves,  loi  n. 
Sturm,  72,  207 
Survival  of  the  Fittest  discussed, 

47 
System   of  Medicine,   by   Cliflford 
Allbutt,  79 


Taboos,  274,  278 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  Lord,  writing 
under  pressure,  253 

Theatre  as  educator,  293 

Thomson,  Professor  J.  A.,  67 

Thought,  importance  of,  in  a  citi- 
zen, 331;  further  development 
needed,  334;  conditions  needful 
for  the  growth  of,  336-338;  how 
to  find  and  endow  men  of,  338- 
341;  sound  criticism  needed, 
342;  scheme  for  founding  maga- 
zine and  endowing  lectureships 
of  criticism,  343;  endowment  of 
men  of  letters,  348-362 

Times,  The,  126 

Tips,  influence  of,  160,  161 

Tit  Bits,  159 

Toleration,  modern,  contrasted 
with  the  past,  i 

Tolstoy,  213 

Trade  unions,  102;  influence  of, 
162,  166 

Tradition,  of  home  life,  156-165 

Transvaal,  25 

Trench,  Herbert,  his  suggestion  of 
Literary  Guild,  342 


U 


United  States,  240,  256  ».;  hon- 
ours, 258;  its  senate,  263  n. 

University,  methods  of  education, 
301;  revision  of  text-books,  303; 
scheme  for  education,  307 

University  Press,  304 

Unto  This  Last,  by  Ruskin,  326 

V 

Verulam,  Lord,  362 

Vesu\ius,  177 

Vrooman,  Mr.  and  Mrs.,  68 

W 

Walkley,  Mr.,  346 

Wallas,  Mr.  Graham,  his  sugges- 


400 


Index 


tions    on    breeding    discussed, 

6i   n.\  on  teaching  the  piano, 

195  «. 
Waugh,  Rev.  Benjamin,  89 
Webb,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Sidney,  on 

"Industrial   Democracy,"    100; 

on     employment     of     children, 

307  n. 
Weldon,  Professor,  67 
Wells,  P.  P.,  328  n. 
W'elsh,  Charles,  book  of  nursery 

rhymes  arranged  by,  132 
Welt  ah   Wille   und    Vorstellung, 

Die,  IS 


Whibley,  Charles,  his  collection  of 

Elizabethan  prose,  136 
Wide  World  Magazine,  219 
Wright,  Whitaker,  235 
Writing,  the  teaching  of,  203,  206 


Young,  Brigham,  272 
Z 

Zangwill,  diverse  opinions  about, 

352 
ZoUverein,  27 


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